Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !

eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege &

..
Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon

A Thesis submitted to the Graduate Research Seminar of Hebrew College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master's egree in !ewish Studies aniel "urst#n$ Ma# %&&'

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege '
A person, as far as s/he is human, must always be in Nature, for Nature is to the feeling and aware person just like water is to a fish. The person needs to see more than the reflection of Nature within her own soul. Rather, s/he needs the sphere of Nature, the surrounding and unifying pressure of Nature, that the endless Havayah exerts on e ery spot of her body and soul, that forces her to li e, to be human and to be an indi idual in her own right! s/he needs the continuous and unmediated connection between herself and endless Nature, in order to draw the hidden nourishment that each and e ery atom of her body and soul draws from endless Nature and her whole self draws from the infinite! s/he needs not only consciousness and feeling, but eternal life."

Reading Aaron #a id $ordon%s Human and Nature awakens many of the same ideas as reading essays and stories written almost "&& years later, by educators and social sci' entists examining the relationships between humans and the natural en ironment in the emerging field of (copsychology.) *imilarities abound+ analysis of the human condition in terms of natural processes, the conclusion that the source of the crisis at hand is to be found in the disconnection of the indi idual from her source in nature, that the solution to anxiety and the alienation of the indi idual is a return to nature in e ery sense+ physi' cally, mentally, and spiritually. This paper will attempt to read $ordon through the lens of (copsychology, to compare $ordon%s solutions to the state of the indi idual with those of a number of (copsychologists, and to assess if the possibilities offered by $or' don are applicable to the uni ersal human condition.

" Human and Nature , - . part /, *elected 0ritings, p. 1). The translations here are my own, unless otherwise marked. / ha e taken the liberty to occasionally translate the third person singular pronoun as feminine. $ordon%s 2ebrew, ob iously, followed the con ention that the third person singular is male. 3entral terms in $ordon%s thought, such as Havayah, chavayah, etc. will be discussed at length, but for the most part left in transliteration. Havayah might be best expressed as 4beingness5, but / cannot escape the fact that in $ordon%s religious idiom, as in 3hassidic texts, the term would also be used as a reference or placeholder for the tetragrammaton, the ineffable name of $od. ) The term (copsychology was coined by historian Theodore Ros6ak. /n my use of the term, / include other sub'fields, such as (n ironmental 7sychology and #eep (cology.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ( A( )ntroduction * An offer of ho+e in moments of des+air /t was when / was a twenty'something American 8ew, searching for meaning and di' rection in my life, that / first came across the last part of chapter two of $ordon%s Human and Nature, sometimes gi en the subtitle 49ogic for the :uture.5; This is probably the most often reprinted segment of $ordon%s work, a lyrical call for a return to 4Nature,5 a ision of the world to come. /t is like the ending of the Aleynu prayer, which closes e ery 8ewish prayer ser ice+ 4<n that day, $od will be <ne, and 2is Name will be <ne.5 The romantic rhetoric, the promise of a feeling of unification of body with soul, of a return to Nature, all worked their magic on me. 9ike many young people be' fore me, / was enchanted by the promise that
when, < =an, you will return to Nature, you will open your eyes on that day and you will ga6e straight into the eyes of Nature, you will see therein your own image, and you will know that you ha e returned to yourself, that when you ha e hidden from Nature, you ha e hidden from yourself. ... <n that day, < =an, the fruit of your work will be . 9ife.5

Typical of millennial rhetoric, this short excerpt has found its way into a great deal of >ionist compilations. 3learly, texts of this sort can ser e the purpose of whipping up the excitement of cadres of youth, whether #iaspora 8ews arri ing in /srael to olunteer on ?ibbut6im, or /sraeli youth joining the Nahal @rigade of the /.#.:. <ne is tempted to use the term 4indoctrination.5 <ne small fragment of $ordon%s work, this is the isible tip of an iceberg, which must be considered and critiAued. The second paragraph of the Aleynu prayer ser es an important part in the prayer ser' ice. /t is the ritual imagining of the world to come. /n the morning and afternoon ser'
; @urnce, p. )BCff., Reprinted in 2ert6berg, etc. @urnce%s translation changes the order of $ordon%s original, placing this text at the end of Human and Nature. This may be more appropriate than lea ing it sandwiched between the more philosophical sections of the work.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ) ices, it follows the Tachanun, the daily prayer of atonement, with its focus on the sins and unworthiness of /srael. The Aleynu ser es as an antidote for this self'abnegation. /t is also a reminder that we are partners with $od. /n a sense, it is an affirmation of faith that e en if we now ha e to lea e $od%s presence ,and the safety of the synagogue, for 8ews in late "Dth 3entury (astern (urope- for the daily grind, we hold an image of our hopes and dreams for a perfect world. The daily grind of the majority of 8ewish youth of the early )&th 3entury was proba' bly a pretty poor state of affairs. 3rowded in the tenement slums of 0arsaw, ?rakow, ?ie , ?ishine and <dessa, as well as 9ondon, New Eork and countless industrial cities, they were losing faith in the ancient tradition, yet many had not yet gained an al' ternati e faith in what we now call urban industrial society. The few thousand youths who had taken up the call of >ionism and made their way to 7alestine in the 4*econd Aliyah5 were in e en worse shape . though they were 4taking action,5B most of them were hungry and literally dirt poor. They competed for work with older and more expe' rienced Arab laborers, often accepting less than subsistence wages simply to work. They were torn between the soup kitchens and yeshi as of the Chalukah and the boarding houses and communes of the Chalutzim.1 =any, unable to make ends meet, returned to
B The notion that a 8ew may act to bring about the redemption is a watershed distinction between the >ionists, who declared it necessary and the <rthodox Religious establishment, who forbade it beyond the performance of day to day mitzvot. *ee Aberbach, p. "C)+ 4=odern >ionism was born out of the idea that the 8ews had to master their own destiny and not depend on pro idence, but rather reject passi e faith and rabbinic authority as potential dangers. 7recisely at this point, 2ebrew literature emerged as an important artistic expression of modern 8ewish identity and aspirations.5 1 $ordon%s critiAue of the Chalukah in his early writing, shared by most 9abor >ionists of his time, is still expressed by many >ionists today. 7roducti ity is highly alued in /srael, e en more than education. The internal struggle of the Chalutz between these two poles is best described by Eosef 3haim @renner in his last no el, ,Breakdown and Bereavment). <ne of =uki T6ur%s fa orite tales describes how @erl ?at6nelson succeeded in shaking Eehuda *harett out of deep depression, following the tragic death of his wife, by sitting with him and reading this book o er three days. /n spite of its depressing title and gloomy contents, about the tra ails of one 3hanokh 3hefet6,

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege * their families in (urope, others emigrated to the Americas, others, literally unable to keep body and soul together, committed suicide. This part of $ordon%s text is clearly aimed at these youths, with the same intent as the words of the prayer . to urge them to hold on to the dream of unification, the dream of a resolution to the dissonance of life. @y holding the dream ali e in the imagination, the physical hardships of life might become bearable for a while. At the same time, $ordon is clearly aiming higher than simple sur i al. "( Human and Nature, an attem+t to e-+ress a s#stematic +hiloso+h# =any early )&th 3entury thinkers found the horrors of modern warfare, particularly of 0orld 0ar /, led them to renounce (uropean rationalism, urban industrialism, and with it a large part of human culture. @ut for $ordon and other Russian >ionists, the tribulations of the 8ewish people, at the hands of anti'semitic mobs and ruthless bureau' crats were more than enough.F $ordon%s rejection of urban industrialism was not purely romantic, calling for a return to an ideali6ed 4nature5 with no thought of the implica' tions for industrial society. Rather, he called upon the indi idual, or more specifically, 8ewish indi iduals, who felt alienated from industrial, urban society, to seek refuge in a ery specific nature, in the natural life of farming and building the 9and of /srael. :rom an organic connection to this place, he said, they would be able to find a more organic place in the world.C
who cannot seem to succeed in 7alestine either as a chalutz or as a yeshiva bokher, in the end it lea es the reader with a feeling of elation. *ee also *chweid%s discussion of the place of 4(ret6 Eisrael in the >ionist (xperience.5 F /n this respect, they form an avant arde to certain later streams of thought. *ee Aberbach, ch. D, and *ternhell, ch. " C 8eremy @enstein writes+ 4*ome years ago, / participated in a conference at 2ar ard Gni ersity on %8udaism and the Natural (n ironment.% <nce there, / learned that the conference was one in a series on different religious traditions and the en ironment. @esides the usual faith traditions that one might

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege + The promise of the return to >ion and the creation of a new 8ewish person, contained within it the more uni ersal promise of re olution, a new world, a new human being, and a new way of humanity%s being in the world. 0hile most of $ordon%s writing was publicistic in nature, Human and Nature attempts to expound a coherent theory of that new way of being, his own solution to the existential Auestions that plagued him and his contemporaries. 2is solutions draw both on western philosophy and on the 8ewish tradi' tion. /n many ways, they presaged similar analyses and solutions proposed in the centu' ry since, including ecopsychology. C( .co+s#cholog# * an o/er/iew The term (copsychology was coined by historian Theodore Ros6ak in his "DD) book The !oice o" the #arth as an attempt to merge the fields of psychology and ecology 4as an appeal to en ironmentalists and psychologists for a dialogue that would enrich both fields and play a significant role in public policy.5H Ros6ak was concerned with both the negati ity generated by protest'oriented en ironmentalism, and with the fact that there was no rubric in the psychological ocabulary for the beha ior, often described collo'

expect ,3hristianity, /slam, @uddhism, etc.-, there was a separate conference for indigenous peoples. *o, in addition to trying to figure out who got in itations to that one and why ,i.e., who are indigenous peoples and what do they ha e in commonI-, / had my own gut reaction, which was, %2ey, / want to beJ/ should beJwith those guysK% 4=y reactions at that conference stemmed from the same feeling that led me to pack up and mo e to /srael from the Gnited *tates twenty'plus years ago. =y in ol ement with >ionism, lo e of 2ebrew and /sraeli folk culture, and e entually my aliyah to a small pioneering kibbut6 in the Ara a wilderness, was a personal attempt at 4reindigeni6ation.5 That is, ha ing grown up in a typical American suburb, and not feeling 4nati e5 there, or connected to anywhere in particular, / wanted to try to root myself in a place that 4made sense5 for me as a 8ew, that was not simply the luck of the migratory draw. 4:or two thousand years, we 8ews ha e insistently, almost pathologically, pre ented oursel es from de eloping a deep connection to any other spot on the globeJthough we ha e sojourned in most of them.5 ,@enstein, p. )&C'HH Ros6ak ,)&&"-, p. ;);

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege , Auially as 4cra6y,5 typical of people alienated from nature. < er the past two decades, psychologists, educators, and theorists ha e gathered under this rubric, seeking solu' tions to the neurosis, psychosis, anxiety, and alienation of life in under 0estern, con' sumerist, urban'industrial materialism. They seek these in nature and wilderness. Ros6a' k%s book was an attempt to 4bridge the long'standing, historical gulf between the psy' chological and the ecological, to see the needs of the planet and the person as a continu' um.5 2e writes+ 4the ecological priorities of the planet are coming to be expressed through our most pri ate spiritual tra ail. The (arth%s cry for rescue from the punishing weight of the industrial system ... is our own cry for a scale and Auality of life that will free each of us to become the complete person we were born to be.5D 9ike =urray @ookchin%s %social ecology,% (copsychology seeks a balance between a world iew that is centered on nature and one that is centered on humanity. @ookchin points out that the eco'centric or bio'centric tendency of %deep ecology% leads to a dan' gerous misanthropy. 42uman beings belong to a natural continuum, no less than their primate ancestors and mammals in general. To depict them as %aliens% ... or ... as an in' festation that parasiti6es a highly anthropomorphic ersion of the planet ,$aia- ... is bad thinking, not only bad ecology.5"& 0e will see below that $ordon%s thought grants a bal' ance of place for both humanity and nature. The problem of defining a place for humanity in the world is an ancient one. The book of $enesis preser es at least two differing tales of creation. /n 3hapter ", the hu' man is created last in a series of perfect creations. /n 3hapter ), howe er, the male hu'
D /bid., p. "B "& @ookchin, 40hat is *ocial (cologyI5

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege man is created before anything else, and we are told that nothing could grow, not only for lack of water, but 4there was no man to till the soil.5 This story is often considered a series of 2oly trials and errors, but the human place in it is ne ertheless more acti e than the first. Traditional 8ewish readings of these stories emphasi6e this ambi alence+ the =idrash reminds us that the human was created last not as the pinnacle of creation, but as an afterthought+ 4should man become arrogant, he should be reminded that e en the lowly flea was created before him.5 The 3hassidic Rabbi *imcha @unam of 7shis%cha told his disciples to carry a note in each pocket, one saying 4the world was created for me5 and the other saying 4/ am made of dust and ashes5 ' the first to lift de' pressed spirits, the second to maintain humility when hubris threatens."" (co'critic Grsula 2eise writes that although we all ha e an intuiti e grasp of the dis' tinction between nature and culture, it is difficult to formali6e. 4=ost of the natural en' ironments 0esterners encounter in their own societies, at any rate, are anything but %wild% or untouched by man''e en though they may continue to strike the obser er as ir' reducibly nonhuman and other.5") *uch otherness can alienate the indi idual to the point of ignoring nature or constructing a world iew that defines culture and nature as mutu' ally exclusi e. (copsychology seeks to construct the opposite world iew, one in which the human is part of the natural world, growing organically from it, and sharing with it a mutual responsibility.
"" 9ynn 0hite, 8r.%s well known "DFC article 4The 2istorical Roots of <ur (cological 3risis5 , $cience, "11 ,"& =arch "DFC-+")&;';C- elides any midrashic ,or otherwise interpreti e- readings of the story of creation in $enesis, and conflates the two ery distinct ersions. 2e claims that in the 3hristian iew, inherited from 8udaism, 4=an shares, in great measure, $od%s transcendence of nature.5 The response to this article is often pointed to as the beginning of 8ewish (n ironmentalism . a mo ement that is framed in apologetics and proof'texts for 8udaism%s inherent en ironmental sensiti ity. ") 2eise, 4*cience and (cocriticism5

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege . At the end of his book, Ros6ak defines eight principles of ecopsychology, as a 4guide, suggesting how deep that listening must go to hear the *elf that speaks through the self.5
". The core of the mind is the ecological unconscious. ). The contents of this ecological unconscious represent the li ing record of e olution. The therapeutic work of ecopsychology draws upon them, healing by making them real to experience. ;. The goal of ecopsychology is to awaken the inherent sense of en ironmental reciprocity that lies within the ecological unconscious. B. As in other therapies, the crucial stage of de elopment is the life of the child. 1. The ecological ego matures towards a sense of ethical responsibility with the planet. F. Re'e aluation of certain 4masculine5 character traits that dri e us to dominate nature. C. *mall scale social forms and personal empowerment nourish the ecological ego. H. There is a synergistic interplay between planetary and personal well'being.";

(copsychology seeks a transpersonal approach to nature. 8ohn #a is says it recog' ni6es 4a fundamentally non'dual, seamless unity in which both nature and psyche flow as expressions of the same absolute source.5"B $ordon%s conception of the indi idual, Auoted abo e, as a drop in the 4sea of life,5 is strikingly similar.

"; Abridged from /bid., p. ;)&';)" "B #a is, "DDH. #a is is a professor of (n ironmental 7sychology at Naropa Gni ersity.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege &/ ( Gordon's 0ife, )nto-icated with 1ature234 Aaron #a id $ordon was born in "H1F in Troyano, in southern 7odolia, a pro ince of Russian 7oland, now in Gkraine. 2is father held a post as a clerk in a country estates of @aron 2orace $Ln6burg, who was a distant cousin. As a relati e of the @aron, he had special permission to li e in the countryside, though most 8ews were confined by 36arist decree to the towns. Aaron was the last of fi e children born, but the only one to sur i e infancy. 2e was a sickly child, and his parents were ery protecti e and hired pri ate tutors to educate him. As a teenager he spent some time in a Eeshi a at Milna. 0hen he came of age, he insisted on being drafted into the Russian army, though he was released after a few months as unfit to ser e. ( entually, he too worked as a clerk and financial manager in the $Ln6burg estates, at =ogilno. 2e was unable to obtain permission to li e there, howe er, and was forced to commute to work daily, usually walking se eral miles through the countryside. This was a rare situation for someone of his class in that time and place, and presumably ga e $ordon aluable time outdoors that he may not ha e had otherwise."F $ordon married :ayge Tartako when he was in his early )&s. Their daughter Eael was born in "HH" and her brother Eehiel =ichal a year later. /n a tragic replay of $or' don%s own childhood, se eral more children did not sur i e infancy. /n spite of his own lifelong poor health, $ordon was ery acti e in the 8ewish community of =ogilno, helping found schools, a library and regularly preaching in the synagogue. 2e was
"1 The material here was gathered from the biographical material in the sources listed in sections A and @ of the bibliography. The most extensi e and apparently accurate biography of $ordon appears in #r. (inat Ramon%s dissertation. "F 0hat $ordon%s work consisted of is not entirely clear. 2amutal @ar Eosef hints that he also spent some time working in the $Ln6berg family library in *t. 7etersburg. *ee note BC.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege && known especially for his work with youth, for whom he organi6ed many acti ities, in' cluding reading clubs and intellectual salons. 2e was a oracious reader, and an auto'di' dact. 2e taught himself three (uropean languages, biology and botany, and other fields as he needed. /n order to better teach his own children, his daughter Eael reported that he spent an entire year studying the @ible with the traditional commentaries. Ne erthe' less, he did not publish any writing during this period of his life, nor are there many more known details. /n addition to the brief biographical sketch by Eosef Aharonowit6, and memoirs of $ordon%s daughter Eael, one letter to historian and >ionist *imon #ub' now written in "HDH is all that exists from this period of $ordon%s life. After ); years, the $Ln6burg%s sold their =ogilno estate, and $ordon was out of work. /n the months that followed, both his parents died. /t was at this juncture ,"D&B- that $ordon decided to uproot himself and make aliyah to #retz %israel. ( erywhere he had li ed he had been acti e in the community, and sympathetic to >ionist causes, raising money for Hibbat &ion, and allowing his house to become a gathering place for young people in search of spiritual support and intellectual stimulation. /n spite of his age of BH upon arri ing in 7alestine, $ordon chose the life of a Chalutz, an agricultural laborer. 2e li ed first in Reho ot, and worked where er he could. /n "D&H, he was stabbed by an Arab bandit, and ery nearly lost his life. This e ent somewhat shook his resol e, and led him to recogni6e that the >ionist myth of 4a land without a people for a people without a land5 was false. 2e later wrote that those who inherit the land in the long run will be the 4people that shows they most suffered for it.5

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege &' After his wife and daughter joined him towards the end of the decade, they made a home in the workers% cooperati e illage of (in $anim, near 7etach Tik a. There, in "D"&, tragedy struck, in the form of a serious illness that killed :ayge $ordon. 2er hus' band had nursed her through her illness, and nursed their daughter Eael to health, while mourning :ayge%s death. *oon after, a box containing much of his personal effects was stolen from him, including his only mementos of his wife. /t was only in "D") that he mo ed to the $alilee, where he worked in arious loca' tions until the end of the :irst 0orld 0ar. The news of his son Eechiel%s death from ty' phoid only reached him after the war%s end. $ordon worked in many of the seminal agri' cultural cooperati es of 7alestine, including =igdal, *egera, Tel Adashim, and ?in' neret.At ?inneret he shared a room with @erl ?at6nelson, who was greatly influenced by him. The settlement with which his name is most closely associated is #egania Aleph, the first kibbut6, although he only settled there in "D"D, after recei ing a person' al in itation from the members. $ordon died three years later, of esophageal cancer. /n his years in #retz %israel, $ordon wrote and published extensi ely, on both politi' cal and philosophical themes. 2is philosophical work, Human and Nature, was begun in (in $anim, and the first two chapters were published in "D&D and "D";, including the lyrical passage mentioned abo e. 2e ne er completed this attempt to systemati6e his thought, though he worked on it again in his last years. Aharonowit6 relates in a foot' note that $ordon told him he intended to write two more chapters, one on religion and nature, and the other on women and nature.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege &( $ordon%s energetic and optimistic personality became more important and better known than his writing. =ost of his contemporaries of the *econd Aliyah alued his ability as a propagandist, and his followers of the Third and :ourth Aliyot ,"D"C'"D)Hidoli6ed him for his personal example as an 4enlightened peasant.5 /n present'day /srael studies, his political, publicistic works get more focus than his philosophical work, to the point that historian >e%e *ternhell can paint him in almost fascist colors, as the propagator of one of the first 'oundin (yths o" )srael, that of an organic nationalism, anti'liberal and almost anti'humanist. *adly, the mythical image of the old man with the hoe, dancing the hora with the young chalutzim, seems to be $ordon%s most lasting legacy. /n the wider 8ewish world, he is barely known outside the >ionist youth mo e' ments. /n the "D1D reader The &ionist )dea that remains the primary collection of prima' ry >ionist texts, Arthur 2er6berg called $ordon 4the heterodox 2asidic master of the 9abor'>ionist mo ement.5 9ike the 2asidic masters, in life $ordon was considered more of a teacher than an ideologue, and following his death he was canoni6ed into a figure larger than life. @ut he was not strictly a socialist, and was especially critical of <rthodox =arxism. $ordon%s philosophical thought, if known, has been widely misun' derstood and stereotyped as the 4religion of labor.5"C This is a term $ordon himself ne ' er used, and likely would ha e discouraged, preferring to say that his religion was 49ife itself.5"H
"C *chweid, , p. C $ordon%s departure from the socialist commune at Tel Adashim was precipitated by an argument o er the celebration of the first of =ay+ Gpon the decision of the general meeting that all members would be reAuired to celebrate the 4workers% holiday,5 $ordon ceremoniously stood up and walked out. "H *elected 0ritings, p. ";B+ 47ure natural life, life within Nature and with Nature, life that is the complete expression, both spiritual and intellectual, of the highest emotional unity . this is the true Religion.5

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege &) Sur/e# of 0iterature i( Gordon's 5ritings The written work of A. #. $ordon was first collected and published in a chronologi' cal fashion by his friend and editor Eosef Aharonowit6 in the late "D)&s. /t remains the definiti e collection of his works"D. A one olume abridgment was published by Nah' man Teradyon and (lie6er *hochat in the "D;&s. A subseAuent three olume collection, edited by *hochat and *hmuel 2ugo @ergman was published in the "D1&s, but has been critici6ed, especially for the editors% thematic rearrangement of the material and their ad' dition of subheadings in the margins of Human and Nature. /n spite of this criticism, a third edition, abridged to one olume by (lie6er *chweid, used the same plates, main' taining both the subheadings and the thematic arrangement. (inat Ramon points out that @ergman and *hohat%s editorial choices hide from the reader the fragmented nature of Human and Nature. /n spite of being presented here as a unified project, the first two chapters were published separately, ending with the emotional and prophetic sounding passage 49ogic for the :uture.5 /n the following years, $ordon wrote a number of im' portant pieces, notably the essay 4(ternity and the =oment,5 and only returned to the work on Human and Nature in his last years.)& $ordon%s letters were mostly collected in the second edition of his works, and recently republished, with comments and additions, by =uki T6ur in "DD&. $ordon%s work has ne er been adeAuately translated. Translations of Teradyon%s abridged collection were made in both $erman ,"D;C-, and (nglish ,"D;H-. The (nglish
"D *ee *chweid, *hapira, and Ramon )& Ramon )&&", p. "1'"F

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege &* ersion was published by the 9eague for 9abor 7alestine. The translation is by :rances @urnce. Gnfortunately, in this ersion, Human and Nature does not present the material in $ordon%s original order, rather, it breaks up the first two chapters, placing the 49ogic for the :uture5 section after a fiercely abridged ersion of the rest of the work. /n addi' tion, liberties taken throughout the translation elide much of $ordon%s original meaning. A number of essays from this olume were published in "D1D in Arthur 2er6berg%s The &ionist )dea, and remain the only examples of $ordon%s work a ailable in (nglish. ))( Scholarshi+ Though the body of $ordon%s work was first collected and published in the late "D)&s, little critical scholarship on it was undertaken until se eral decades later. The textual material a ailable from before the "DF&s is primarily in the form of memoirs, reminiscences, hagiographical biographies, and indoctrinational material from the ari' ous >ionist youth mo ements.)" /n the words of =uki T6ur+
Those who attempted to translate his words for the era of the "D1&s and F&s, those years of political potboiling, of the fights o er communism, fascism, o er assimilation and nationalism, found them difficult and preferred to skip o er many of the obstacles that $ordon built. Those who fit him into foreign intellectual categories were the butt of criticism of those who wished to preser e him as the greatest mind of a generation.))

A( "ergman These last remarks may refer to the attempt to analy6e $ordon%s work by philoso' pher and librarian *hmuel 2ugo @ergman, who also edited the second edition of $or' don%s collected works. @ergman%s introductory essay to the second olume of that edi'
)" Not the least of these mo ements was the short li ed, eponymous $ordonia, which was responsible for the founding of a do6en kibbut6im during its thirteen year existence. )) T6ur "DDH, p. C ,my translation-.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege &+ tion attempts to place $ordon in the flow of western philosophical thought. @ergman tried to map out the relationships between $ordon%s work and that of western philoso' phers like Niet6sche and 2enri @ergson. Although others, especially *chweid and A ra' ham *hapira, show that $ordon%s language is primarily religious, the secular connec' tions @ergman draws to psychology, especially the depth psychology of 3arl 8ung and (rich Neumann, are important. @ergman points out that $ordon%s iew of religion did not differentiate between par' ticularistic and uni ersal religion. :rom $ordon%s point of iew, all religions are nation' alist ideologies. @ergman writes+ 42e justifies... the nations who complain of the loss of their national religion and rebel against a 3hristianity that took their national religion from them, and sees in that one of the roots of antisemitism.5); Religion, like language, is the %spiritiual fruit of the nation.% The religion of /srael aspired to that framework from its ery roots, @ergman says, concluding that this conception of 8udaism pre ented $or' don from seeing some of its basic concepts. @ergman then goes on to point out ?rochmal%s argument in this case . since /srael recogni6es no $od other than the $od of the nations, the 4$od of /srael5 is different from the local deity of each nation. This cord binds $ordon%s thought to that of other (uropean nationalists of the time, clearly a dubi' ous distinction in the dark days following 0orld 0ar //. 0hat @ergman fails to note, that can be seen in subseAuent scholarship, is the implications that this brand of nation' alism has for $ordon%s philosophy of Nature.)B /n the grand tradition of 8ewish mysti'

); *econd (dition, ol. //, p. ;" )B *ee *ternhell and Aberman.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege &, cism stretching back at least to Rabbi Eehudah 2a9e i of medie al *pain, $ordon af' firms a mystical connection between the indi idual 8ewish soul and the 9and of /srael. $ordon%s iew of the self is ery similar to that of 8ung, according to @ergman. Ac' cording to 8ung, he points out, the ego floats on the unconscious like an island in the sea. The same layers of the soul that make up this 4sea,5 contain not only those elements that were once part of the indi idual, as :reud taught, but also elements that were ne er consciously contained in the life of the indi idual. :urthermore, 8ung says that the con' scious ego rebels against human nature. 4=ore correctly+ it is not the human that rebels against nature, rather from this moment forward there are in the human self two %natures% that fight one another,5 writes @ergman.)1 This process repeats itself in the de elopmen' tal process of each indi idual+
/n the soul humans will disco er ast hidden strengths, that will enrich the li es of people and will bring them to ad ances in internal culture, as great as those of science and technics.5 4/n this sense, $ordon eAuated,5 according to his daughter, 4the whole of humanity with the indi idual, who before all else learns to know, in the dawn of his life, the outside world, his surroundings, while ignoring his own pri ate world and only in his forties, ha ing gained real life experience in those surroundings, begins to pay attention to the self, to his inner world.5)F
)1 <p. cit., ol. //, p"D )F /bid. p.)&, Auoting from a memoir by Eael $ordon. @oth $ordon and 8ung probably belie ed in 2aekel%s theory of strong recapitulation, which held sway until Auite recently. 7robably @ergman also held this e olutionary theory to be scientific fact. The implications of recapitulation on philosophical understanding of human de elopment and human history seem to ha e always been held as fact, long before the beginnings of "Dth 3entury ( olutionary *cience. ( an (isenberg suggests that <edipus%s interpretation of the riddle of the sphinx indicates the ancient source of the beginning of the mix up. The *phinx, he says, spoke of phylogeny. /n this reading, the crutch can be seen as technology in general. <edipus, according to (isenberg, was too self centered to think of anything but ontogeny+ 4@y applying the parable to one man%s lifetime, <edipus was able to dodge its cautionary point. NThe *phinx%sO worst fears were soon reali6ed, for <edipus, ha ing denied his origin in =other (arth, was now free to iolate her. To stifle our guilt about penetrating our mother, we deny that she is our mother. /f peoples that take up plow agriculture gi e up the worship of the $reat =other, it may be from shame o er their rape of her.5 ,(isenberg, pF1A similar concept to recapitulation occurs in the kabbalistic literature in the form of the Auotation+ 4As abo e, so below5 ' which is understood by the kabbalists to mean that the internal workings of the

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege &:or @ergman, the main similarity between these two theories lies in their differentia' tion between two loci of the internal life of the indi idual. $ordon%s concept of Havayah, then, is eAuated to 8ung%s 4collecti e unconscious,5 and 8ung%s understanding of the process of indi iduation is the same as what $ordon calls tzimtzum. / discuss these terms at length below. @ergman Auotes here from some of $ordon%s most messianic statements, ones that speak of humanity%s great future, of a time when 4man will find and del e into the trea' sures buried in his soul, and then the hidden light will bla6e forth and enlighten and im' pro e human relations until they reach the le el of a new hea en and a new earth...5)C 0hile this messianic tendency in $ordon%s writing may be typical of early )&th century discourse, it doesn%t seem to deser e @ergman%s notice. / ha e already proposed some of the moti ations / belie e underly this type of language, and will address them further, below. @ergman also discusses $ordon%s ethics. 3ontrary to 8ung and particularly his student (rich Neumann,)H who attacked the traditional concept of ethics on the grounds that they ensla e the soul by 4discipline, obedience, punishments and suffering5, $ordon%s ethics is not one of ensla ement or suffering, rather one of expansion. $ordon%s concept of hit*ashtut ,expansion- explains ethical beha ior as a result of the expansion of the self to include the other. This should be differentiated from standard ?antian ethics, where identification of the self and other stop short of inclusion. :or
indi idual are a reflection of the workings of $od, according to some, or of the hea enly hosts, according to others. 2aekel also coined the term 4ecology.5 )C /bid. )H Neumann escaped $ermany following the rise of the Na6is, and practiced psychoanalysis in Tel A i until his death in "DF&.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege &. $ordon, when the self experiences this expansion to the point that it includes the other, then it will want to act ethically, since the pain of the other becomes the self%s own pain. /n a letter Auoted by @ergman in this discussion, $ordon restates a famous 3hasidic dictum+ 4 P . 4The $hekhinah only fills Na soulO through the joy of mitzvah.5 @ergman explains this cornerstone of $ordon%s world iew thus+ 4instead of the accepted distinction between good and e il, $ordon distinguished between a life of expansion and a life of contraction.5 $ordon claims that the choice is not between good and e il, but is no less than the choice between these two ways of life. /n a life of contraction the indi idual%s will is limited, while 4the extent to which his life expands, the indi idual is aware not only with conscious awareness, rather primarily with an experiential and ital awareness of the unity of uni ersal being and all its disco eries, to the extent that the indi idual li es acti ely from within himself into uni ersal life, that is the extent to which the indi idual%s will itself will expand, to encompass e erything ... truly becoming free will.5)D Thus, ethical beha ior is not a choice in and of itself, but the result of the choice of expansion o er contraction. "( Schweid 7rofessor (lie6er *chweid can be called the dean of $ordon studies today! much of his early work was dedicated to $ordon%s thought and he continues to teach and pro' mote a %$ordonian% philosophy. /n "DC&, *chweid published the first scholarly analysis of $ordon%s work, ,The +orld o" A.,. -ordon-. @y following @ergman%s psycho' logical'philosophical focus, *chweid only scratches the surface of that element of $or' don%s message that is bound in his use of religious language. Ne ertheless, in his book,
)D <p. cit., p. )"' ))

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege '/ and his subseAuent essays on $ordon, *chweid thoroughly systemati6es $ordon%s thought. *chweid traces $ordon%s thought as it progresses from the indi idual outward through the concentric circles of family, community, nation and Nature. =ost recently, *chweid%s brief study of the place of 4#retz %israel in the >ionist (x' perience5 examines $ordon%s work using a discourse ery similar to that of ecopsychol' ogy. 2ere, *chweid attempts to disentangle the 4textual memory map5 of #retz %israel that $ordon brought with him from Russia and identify the 4ideological charge5 that brought him to make Aliyah. 42e saw himself making Aliyah like Rabbi Eehudah 2a9e i, and understood the meaning of #retz %israel as the homeland of the 8ewish people from a similarly religious point of iew, though he expressed it in modern philo' sophical language.5 /n his .uzari, 2a9e i wrote of a uniAue Auality in the physical land of /srael that differentiated it from other lands, just as the people of /srael were different from other peoples, both, by irtue of a special relationship with $od, which also tied them one to another. Thus, only when the people of /srael are li ing in #retz %israel and practicing the additional mit6 ot connected to it, can the land come to its full fruition. *chweid says that $ordon%s philosophical interpretation of this trys to blunt its inherent chau inism, and to reconcile it with a more uni ersal humanism. Rather than erasing any other such naturalist nationalisms, *chweid reads $ordon as applying 2a9e i%s cos' mic chau inism to all nationalisms . each land has its own people, and will reach its fullest fruition when they are united.;&
;& /t is not the intention of this paper to compare $ordon%s mystical nationalism with that of others, throughout (urope, who called on their compatriots to renew their bonds to an ancestral homeland, whether it be :inland, *erbia, or 7alestine. The similarity should not go unnoticed, howe er. :or an interesting discussion of a similar nationalism, written with an awareness of both ecological and psychological implications, see Applegate, 3elia, A Nation o" /rovincials0 The -erman )dea o" Heimat. ,@erkeley+ Gni ersity of 3alifornia 7ress, "DD&-.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege '& *chweid breaks up $ordon%s conception of Nature into three forms+ aesthetic'roman' tic, scientific, and experiential'religious. All three, he says, ser ed $ordon in his work. The first two are the more common forms of conception, and depend on the objectifying lens of hakarah ,simply understood as conscious thought . see below-. Though most people see Nature as existing only in one of these two forms, without the third, they constitute an external iew of nature, and thus cannot lead to a true 4return to Nature.5 A true human return to Nature happens only through the joint creati ity of the 2uman and the Natural, 4in other words the channeling of the human%s physical and spiritual powers of creati ity into Nature, in order to produce e erything the spiritual and materi' al fertility can...5;" *haring 2a9e i%s focus on the mit6 ot of #retz %israel, $ordon translated their holiness into the more general commandment of working in Nature, working the land. Through such work, done with 4pure intentions,5 recycling the holi' ness of Nature through the work of the body, into the land, and back again, the chalutz can simultaneously sol e the problems of personal, national, and uni ersal exile. Ac' cording to *chweid%s reading of $ordon, in this sense, the %Torah of 9abor% is the essence of >ionism, e en of 8udaism itself, and its uni ersal message to humanity. C( Sha+ira Abraham *hapira, founding editor of the influential journal $hdemot, takes *chweid%s work a step farther, into the depths of 8ewish *tudies, by examining $ordon%s use of tra' ditional 8ewish language, particularly that of ?abbalah and 3hassidism. Though $or' don%s family background was of the mitna dim, and his exposure to 3hassidism was negati e by the accounts of his daughter Eael and of Aharonowit6, $ordon%s language
;" /bid., p. )1;

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege '' adopts many chassidic idioms. /ndeed, his contribution to =odern 2ebrew, the word ,chavayah . now used to mean 4experience5 in the intransiti e sense-, is based in the form ..., a term often used as a euphemism for the tetragrammaton in 3hassidic and ?abbalistic texts. Thus, *hapira sees $ordon%s thought as growing organically from the traditional'historic corpus of 8ewish thought, rather than being built from the bricks of 0estern Thought, as @ergman tried to claim. <ne relationship *hapira specifically examines is with the 3hassidim of @rat6la . 2e relates that author Eehuda Ea%ari, who knew $ordon personally, was con inced that $ordon had been a @rat6la er 3hassid before his Aliyah to (ret6 Eisrael, 4on account of his ocabulary, his modes of expression, and his melodies.5;) ( Amir Eehoyada Amir, a student of *chweid and colleague of *hapira in the 4$hdemot cir' cle,5;; offers important translations of $ordon%s central concepts in a chapter on the cen' trality of pedagogy in $ordon%s thought. Together with (inat Ramon%s work, Amir%s chapter is the only recently published (nglish work that addresses $ordon%s thought on its own terms.;B 0hile Ramon maintains the 2ebrew terms to discuss $ordon%s uniAue language, Amir pro ides translations. <f particular importance are his reading of
;) *hapira, p. HF, note )F+ 4T6 i T6ameret tells of a con ersation in which E. Ea%ari said e en more than this+ %$ordon%s life up until his Aliyah has not been researched enough. /n my opinion, he was a @rat6la er 3hassid. And why do / say soI :rom his ocabulary, his mode of expression, and his niggunim.5,T6 i T6ameret, 43on ersations with Eehuda Ea%ari, ,avar, #ec. "B, "DH);; A group of 9abor >ionist intellectuals, many of them kibbut6niks, who gathered around the editorial board of $hdemot in the late "DF&s. <thers in this group include Eari @en Aharon, =uki T6ur, and Amos <6. Their most influential work was ,published in (nglish as The $eventh ,ay-, a collection of narrati es and discussions by /sraeli soldiers following the *ix #ay 0ar. ;B As mentioned abo e, *ternhell%s important work only examines $ordon%s nationalist thought, and ignores his legacy of caring and close personal relationships. *chweid has published articles in (nglish that mention $ordon in the context of >ionism and 7rophetic =ysticism, but not exclusi ely. *ee @ibliography.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege '( chavayah and hakarah, the two terms $ordon uses to describe two methods of obtain' ing knowledge, or two types of knowledge. Amir translates chavayah as %life perception% and hakarah . %cognition.% These terms will be discussed at length below. / think Amir%s translations raise problems, howe er+ in ecologically sensiti e fields, the term %cogni' tion% immediately raises negati e connotations . it echoes with #escartes%s famous dec' laration and all the accusations surrounding the rise of 3artesian dualism. =uch ecolog' ical thought places responsibility for the "Cth 3entury narrowing of the scope of scientif' ic study from the uni ersal to the measurable on #escartes head, so / prefer to lea e hints of his work out of my discourse.;1 / prefer the translation %conscious awareness% for another reason as well . it is closest to the modern 2ebrew usage of the term chavayah, and indicates a state that is neither entirely passi e nor entirely acti e. / read chavayah as existing in an intermediate realm between acti ity and stasis . $ordon clearly uses it in both ways. Amir%s translation %life experience% fits too easily onto the identical (nglish term, with its cumulati e connotation. /n 2ebrew, that is rendered in entirely different language.;F Thus / ha e chosen to follow Ramon, and render $ordon%s terms in translit' eration. A more recent article by Amir addresses directly the issue of Nature by examining $ordon%s approaches to #retz %israel and its landscape. Amir points out that in his dis' cussions of Nature, $ordon rarely discusses any landscape specifically. The landscape of 7alestine, as alien and harsh as it seemed when he first saw it, was the Nature, the physical substrate, of the 8ewish people, as $ordon saw it. The people had been 4torn5
;1 *ee (isenberg, p. ;&1 4that #escartes who gets blamed do6ens of times a day for parting thought from emotion, mind from body, and man from nature . Nwas a mysticO.5 ;F ,nisayon-, from the root also meaning 4to test5

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ') from Nature, and sent into exile. They must be replanted in the soil of the land of /srael. This 4tear5 was not from the woods and fields of 7odolia or any other land of the exile, but from the land that has gi en birth to the nation to begin with, before the exile. /t was the exile that had forced on them suffering, passi ity, and parasitic beha ior. The work of the >ionist mo ement was to a- reawaken the nation of /srael in b- the 9and of /srael, speaking c- the language of /srael. This ob iously gradual work would also affect change in those 8ews who would remain outside of #retz %israel+ they would also e en' tually lose the feeling of exile. $ordon%s thought was that they, too, would adopt a life of work in nature, e entually li ing in other lands as any other ethnic minority. Amir points out here the importance of $ordon%s idea of - 2uman/Nation . the organic national unit that is the natural progression beyond the family and before Nature itself. 4The meaning of 1Am-adam is two'fold. /nwardly+ the people that is made up of indi iduals li ing a life of expansion, expressing their independence, and working from a place of responsibility and according to scales of justice and solidarity with oth' ers.5;C <utwardly, it is the radical reAuirement that the people beha e toward other na' tions according to the same criteria. The 2uman/Nation, like the 2uman indi idual, is created in $od%s image. *ome, like *ternhell, ha e elided the ethical command of this statement, reading this as supporting a chau inistic, 8udeo'centric idea of chosenness. Amir reads $ordon as saying that a nation li ing a true life of expansion in its own landscape, must ha e the highest ethical beha ior. 41Am-adam ... is the polar opposite of a national public li ing according to its narrowest indi idual interests, and enshrining

;C Amir, 4 ,5 p. ;BB, my translation.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege '* them, the opposite of li ing the life of contraction that is gross nationalism, the opposite of the tendency to use the concept of %me and no other% to justify politics and policy.5;H .( Ramon Rabbi (inat Ramon%s #octoral #issertation, 4$od, The =other+ A 3ritiAue of #omi' nation5 is the most recent comprehensi e scholarly work on $ordon. Already in her in' troductory comments, she delineates major themes which $ordon shares with feminist thought+ maternal beha ior as a paradigm for ethics, female $od'language, and his cri' tiAue of domination. The connection of feminist philosophy and theology to ecology has been clearly marked by scholars such as *usan $riffin, 3arolyn =erchant, and others in the growing field of eco'feminism. /rene #iamond and #a id *eidenberg ha e explored 8udaism from an eco'feminist perspecti e. Ramon shows how $ordon%s thought prefigures the feminist critiAue of power and domination, a theme shared by many exponents of ecopsychology. 4>ionist and femi' nist tropes rejected :ather'$od symbolism and employed a cluster of feminine symbols such as earth, land, nature and motherhood.5;D $ordon%s intuition of connectedness and its anti'hierarchical implications are central to Ramon%s thesis. /n her second chapter, 4The 9and of =y :athers is =y =other5, Ramon examines the femini6ation of >ion as a general cultural image in the beginning of the >ionist mo ement, and points to $ordon%s exclusi e use of that image in his descriptions of the land. 4The metaphor of return to the mother thus symboli6ed in his works not only the

;H /bid. ;D Ramon, p. "

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege '+ >ionist unification with >ion, but a return to the alue of unification and attachment.5B& Ramon further states+
Thus, $ordon%s metaphorical >ionist statement that the Nature of the 9and of /srael could teach us Torah is reinforced through the following claims+ :irstly, that historically the 2ebrews% encounters with the landscape of /srael led them to crystalli6e their uniAue conception of the di ine and to de elop a religion inspired by those encounters. *econdly, that the Talmudic model of 8ewish religiosity, based mostly on studying legal texts and communal prayer, had distanced 8udaism from those initial moments of re elation. And, lastly that a renewed sensual connection between the 8ewish 7eople and the landscape from which their nation emerged could pro ide them with new insights regarding their understanding of the #i ine. 0hat follows from his doctrine is the assumption that morally, spiritually and intellectually, such an intimate relationship between the 8ewish 7eople and the 9and could also lead the 8ews to reinterpret the record of their historical re elation, namely the Torah.B"

$ordon%s en ironmental concerns are discussed in the fifth part of this chapter, where she points out that in spite of concern for en ironmental degradation caused by industri' al and urban de elopment, $ordon ne er addressed what actions were destructi e and what were positi e. 40hile warning Nabout the possible destruction of nature by alienat' ed human actionO, he did not set out the parameters for ecological beha ior that stemmed from this concern.5B) This analysis will pro ide an opening to critiAue the lim' itations of $ordon%s en ironmental sensiti ity, limitations that he shared with rural ro' mantics throughout the world at the beginning of the )&th 3entury. F( Mu6i T7ur /n the introduction to the "DDH edition of his collection of letters to and from $ordon, historian and storyteller =uki T6ur points out that the changes in the landscape of /srael since $ordon worked it ha e been immense. PThe 9and of /srael about which $ordon
B& Ramon., p. FF B" /bid., p. FD B) /bid., p. C"

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ', wrote during his lifetime has disappeared and is no more. /t is no longer the poor desert land, thirsting and hungering for de elopment ... without the 2ebrew language. Ne er' theless, the landscape that changed so dramatically did not succeed in magically trans' forming the 8ewish indi idual.5B; :or T6ur, this is a sign that $ordon%s analysis was wrong, particularly regarding the place of the indi idual in the field of politics and pow' er. /t is regarding $ordon%s theories of 2uman and Nature, howe er, that T6ur finds a continuing rele ance+ 42ow can the human as consumer maintain his authenticityI And how can a 8ew, who finds in the *tate of /srael a possibility of world citi6enship, mold his 8ewish /dentityI5 :or T6ur, $ordon%s solution to these problems is based in self'edu' cation. G( 8ri Gordon #r. Gri $ordon, a young /sraeli academic and acti ist, shared with me a paper he wrote about $ordon%s ecological philosophy during postgraduate study at Tel A i Gni' ersity. 2is paper lays out a framework for considering the philosophy of A.#. $ordon in comparison with the philosophy of 4#eep (cology,5 as expressed first by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess.BB The uniAue point of A.#. $ordon%s philosophy is the emphasis on the centrality of the human in his conception of Nature. 4Neither humanity nor the indi idual self can exist ... without taking into account the ... systems of being ... which constitute their in' ner essence.5B1 Thus, e en when the traditional understanding of the hierarchy of cre'
B; T6ur ,"DDH-, p. H BB Gri $ordon went on to write his doctoral dissertation at <xford in 7hilosophy, 7olitics and (conomics, initially intending to examine the topic of A.#. $ordon further, but he rejected that topic for analysis of the anarchist and anti'globali6ation mo ement. B1 Gri $ordon, p. C

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege 'ation, in which the human is the pinnacle, is considered, it is only within the network of being that surrounds it. 0hether this reasoning emerges directly from A.#. $ordon%s 8ewish roots, or from his knowledge of *pino6a and later thinkers who grappled with the place of humanity in Nature, it places his thought in a uniAue place in en ironmental philosophy. 9ike many en ironmental thinkers, A.#. $ordon calls for a re ision of all aspects of human existence. @ut unlike many #eep (cologists, who seek to limit, and the case of the radical #arth 'irst2 =o ement, re erse, human acti ity, A.#. $ordon%s thought takes a much more human'centric iew, one that seeks to heal both the human and Na' ture, by returning the human to Nature. A.#. $ordon%s return to Nature, Gri $ordon writes, is 4nothing but the expansion of the self such that it will contain nature in its en' tirety and cease to see it as external.5BF )))( 9n the structure of this wor6 /t is my intention to interpret $ordon%s work in the frame of (copsychology. / dis' co ered in the course of my reading that $ordon%s personal suffering led him to a posi' tion of empathy for the suffering and alienation of his younger contemporaries. :urther' more, it was primarily his experience of the solace he found in Nature that led him to alori6e it. 2is difficulties in acclimati6ing to the conditions of #retz %israel seem to ha e led him to reali6e that the simple use of nature imagery would not be successful, and e entually to adopt a more rationalist, abstract idea of Nature. /n order to better understand $ordon%s work, / first read his approach to human na' ture. This is perhaps the most important part of his legacy . the creation of a modern
BF Gri $ordon, p. );

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege '. 2ebrew language to discuss the self. 9ike his contemporaries, Asher $in6burg ,(chad 2a%am- and 3haim Nachman @ialik, $ordon insisted on writing his philosophical works in 2ebrew, e en though many of the chalutzim ,and e en more of the acti e >ionists in (urope- were not fluent in the 2oly tongue. $ordon%s uniAue contribution is his creation of a language that grew both from traditional Rabbinic thought and from (uropean phi' losophy. 2e coined terms, he set some of them in pairs+ Havayah and chavayah, hasa ah and hakarah, tzimtzum and hit*ashtut. 2e adopted terms from Rabbinic sources and applied them to the modern situation, and he used traditional metaphors in a way that translated them into the secular ernacular. Nine of these terms are examined in detail. $ordon%s thought as expounded in Human and Nature remains the focus, rely' ing on his other works to a lesser extent. :ollowing the rubric of (copsychology suggested by #a is, $ordon%s metaphors for Nature are examined and compared with those of practitioners today. $ordon uses a wealth of abstract Nature imagery, some of it uni ersal, some of it typically 8ewish. Ra' mon%s focus on $ordon%s femini6ation of #retz %israel ser es as a guide here, leading into a discussion of $ordon%s metaphors for the 9and. $ordon%s own struggles upon his arri al to /srael are examined in this context. / suggest that his mo e from concrete na' ture imagery to abstraction suggests a sensiti ity to the pain of separation from the land' scape of childhood. :ollowing T6ur, / see this as an attempt to discourage o er'romanti' ci6ation of the >ionist experience. 3ontinuing with #a is%s rubric, / examine $ordon%s approach to duality in the self. $ordon%s philosophical approach to religion is consid' ered, specifically his neo'2egelian understanding of the roots of 8udaism. This is fol'

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege (/ lowed by a study of the 8ewish traditions of duality that fed $ordon%s thought, in the context of modern history. The chalutzim mostly broke with 8ewish practice upon arri al in (ret6 Eisrael. 9ike others, $ordon struggled with his 8ewish practice, and with their externalities. @ut un' like writers such as @erdyc6ewski, @ialik and @renner, he had a positi e identification with his 8udaism. 2is 8ewishness was more than the sum of the mit6 ot he performed. 2e saw changes in practice as reAuired by the renewal of the 8ewish presence in (ret6 Eisrael, and gradually became more secular, mo ing from what *chweid calls 4pre' scribed5 religious practice, to 4free5 religion. A brief discussion of what Aldous 2uxley called the 4perennial philosophy5 end this section. Next examined are $ordon%s prescriptions for the healing of the alienated self. 2e of' ten repeats, as in the Auote on page ", that the indi idual must constantly 4li e in Na' ture.5 @ut did he make practical prescriptionsI Gnification of the self with the Gni erse can hardly be as simple as walking outside, can itI 3ritiAue of $ordon%s thought first examines it%s roots in Romanticism, rather than ra' tionalism, using /saiah @erlin%s two hallmarks of Romantic thought. These are a focus on indi idual will as a measure of alue, and an insistence on flow and formlessness. ( an (isenberg%s explanation of the Arcadian myth as a basis of Romantic nationalism is also considered. The roots of $ordon%s thought in ancient 8ewish tradition seem to suggest that the Romantic . Rational polarity is a false one. :urthermore, the traits shared by $ordon%s thought with ecopsychology point to a shared intellectual tradition, no less enerable or aluable than rational thought.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege (& $ordon%s ethics are considered within the field of ecological ethics. As suggested by Gri $ordon, A. #. $ordon%s ethics can be a useful bridge between the poles of %deep% and %shallow% ecology, because of his insistence on the necessity of maintaining a hu' man'centered world iew. / belie e that a sensiti ity like $ordon%s to the internal strug' gles of the indi idual is central to any en ironmental ethics. This discussion leads natu' rally into a brief examination of (copsychology practice, based as it is in the same field of thought where $ordon would be ery much at home. Cha+ter 3, Human 1ature $ordon%s primary thesis in Human and Nature shares with #a is the idea of the 4deeply bonded and reciprocal relationship between humans and nature.5 /n order to more closely examine this thesis, / will begin by considering his understanding of hu' man nature+ the self, its parts and beha iors. The relationship between the indi idual and the land, its inhabitants, and Nature as a whole, is dependent on the conception of the self. /n order to express his thoughts about this, $ordon largely created his own ter' minology. =uch of the extant scholarship on $ordon examines the 8ewish roots of his terminology and the internal world he uses it to describe. $ordon%s terms, for the most part, come in pairs+ Chavayah and Havayah, Hasa ah and Hakarah, etc. 0123 :chavaya ; e-+eriencing< and 0120 :Havaya ; being< *cholars ha e wondered whether $ordon, a child of the woods and fields of 7odolia, was influenced by Tolstoy and other Russian proponents of a 4back to Nature5 ideolo' gy, and to what extent.BC 0hat is certain is that $ordon translated at least one of Tol'
BC /t may be that they were both part of the same wa e of Russian reaction to modernity. *ee 2amutal @ar Eosef%s 4>ionism As *een Against the @ackground of Russian 3ulture.5 /n a note to that essay, @ar Eosef mentions a possible connection between $ordon and Mladimir *olo yo , the religious

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege (' stoy%s works, 40hat is ArtI5BH, the introduction to which was later published separately as 4<n the #ifference @etween 8udaism and 3hristianity,5 in which $ordon explains a number of the details of his system of thought. 0hile Tolstoy%s missionary 3hristianity repelled $ordon, his influence so permeated the thought of the period, especially that of the Russians, gentile and 8ew alike, that $ordon felt it necessary both to translate the text into 2ebrew, and to write a refutation of its inherent attacks on 8udaism. /t is in a note to this essay that $ordon first defined his new term, 4P ,chavayah-.BD This term was e entually adopted into =odern 2ebrew. $ordon was seek' ing a speciali6ed term to describe a sort of life force, similar to 2enri @ergson%s elan vital. #rawing from $enesis ;+)& ' % ,' P . 4%( e,% for she was the mother of all that li es5, he declined a noun from the erb .., in the same form taken by other nouns made out of erbs from the same group, especially the similar ... <b' ser ing that the a and the yod are often exchanged in order to adjust a nuance of meaning, he effecti ely created two terms. Chavayah is used in modern 2ebrew in the same general way as the (nglish noun 4experience.5 @ut for $ordon, chavayah was the indwelling 4li ingness5 of the indi idual, the life force itself, but as it exists in each in' di idual. 0e saw abo e that @ergman compared this to @ergson%s elan vital, and there are indeed similarities. @ut the difference is this+ while @ergson%s concept leads the indi'

philosopher known for his connections to #ostoye sky. *olo ie was noted for his interest in (cumenism and in 8ewish =ysticism. 2is most influential work was on *ophia, the feminine embodiment of wisdom. /t is possible $ordon and he met in the library of the $Ln6berg family, where, according to @ar Eosef, $ordon worked for a year, around the same time #a id $Ln6berg and *olo ye collaborated on a work about 8ewish =ysticism. *ee also Aberbach, ch. D. BH 7robably part of the longer essay 4<n the *ignificance of *cience and Art5. BD $elected +ritin s, p. ;)&

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege (( idual to greater attention and focus on detail, $ordon%s leads in the opposite direction . to opening the self wider and wider, until it can encompass the whole of creation. $ordon%s term for the whole of creation, Havayah, is the similar declension of the erb to be ,..-, as we ha e seen abo e, reflecting a terminology common in 3has' sidic and ?abbalistic literature. :or the ?abbalists and the 3hassidic masters, Havayah is the holy name of $od, or e en $od himself, but for $ordon, the term refers to reality, to the totality of existence, of Nature and all that is within it. :or a reader ersed in 3hassidic thought, the implication is one of total identification between Nature, or @e' ing, and $od, comparable to the statement of Rabbi =enachem Nachum of 3hernobyl in the (e1or #ynayim0
0hat is the worldI The world is $od, wrapped in robes of $od, so as to appear to be material. And who are weI 0e too are $od, wrapped in robes of $od, and our task is to unwrap the robes and disco er that we and all the world are $od.1&

This is further explained by $ordon in his discussions of the relation between the in' di idual%s chavayah and the uni ersal Havayah. The image used by $ordon is that of the menorah, the holy oil lamp of the #esert Tabernacle. /t is an image rich with ?ab' balistic o ertones! the menorah, with it%s repeating se en'fold symmetry, is a central theme in ?abbalistic literature. The chavayah, $ordon says, is the light, while the Havayah is the oil for the light. Through exposure to Nature, the indi idual gains access to the eternal source of fuel, the endless Havayah. @ergman compared this idea to 8ung%s indi idual and collecti e unconscious, but $ordon%s idea is more radical. 3omparisons with *pino6a%s idea of substance also fall
1& As Auoted in 0askow, ,own to #arth 3udaism, p. ";". R% =enachem Nachum Twersky of 3hernobyl was a student of the =agid of =e6eritch, and possibly of the @a%al *hem To as well. 2is book, (e1or #ynayim was considered so important that some 3hassidic leaders told their disciples to carry it with their tallit and tefillin.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege () short. Havayah, for $ordon, is e erything, whereas the *pino6an substance is not all'in' clusi e. :or $ordon, the internal chavayah is as much a part of it as the world outside the indi idual. The relation between the two occurs by two methods of conception+ chavayah and hakarah. 0450 :Hasagah conce+tion< and 0670 :Hakarah ; consciousness< The indi idual concei es of the world, $ordon says, by two methods . by chavayah and by hakarah. Chavayah, as we ha e seen abo e, is the state, or more correctly, the action of li ing! it constitutes a pre'conscious, almost sponge'like absorption of experi' ence. Hakarah, on the other hand, is a ery different state. /t is a conscious awareness, thus limited by its own nature. As conscious awareness, the hakarah is the filter through which the indi idual gains information from the world, both the inner world, within the self, and the outer world, through the senses. As such, $ordon says, the hakarah essen' tially creates the world, as far as the indi idual is concerned. This ability, howe er, is limited by the self%s consciousness of itself. The hakarah is able to concei e of things only as far as their externali6ed appearance is concerned, e en if it asks about their exis' tential nature. Through this Auestioning the indi idual can reach a ery deep under' standing of reality1", but still, only from the externalities of reality. The deepest Aues' tion, howe er, 4comes from the opaAue side of the mirror,51) from the self itself, from the hakarah itself, that cannot itself be known, concei ed, or seen.
All this leads to the fact that the 4/5 that is aware, to the extent to which she is aware, to the extent to which she thinks and feels, sees in the world and in life opposites and contradictions ad infinitum, and sees herself, as far as she attempts to settle the contradictions, thrown from one set of contradictions to the next, each
1" The 2ebrew term for 4reality,5 , translates literally to 4that which is found.5 1) Human and Nature, part ;+ $elected +ritin s, p. FH

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege (*
pair deeper and wider than the last, until she comes to the bottomless, most basic contradiction of all, that holds within it all other contradictions.1;

@ecause the hakarah can only examine and in estigate, can only ask more and more Auestions, it can lead the self to dire straits, e en to suicide. @ecause it can Auestion it' self only as far as it can examine itself, it can ne er lead the ego to true self knowledge. This and more, for the constant Auestioning of the hakarah itself leads to frustration, stress, and doubt. Relief can only be obtained through experience, chavayah. /t should be clarified here that this sort of experience is not the experience of experi' mentation, of trial and error, but rather that of being. /t may be helpful to use Abraham 8oshua 2eschel%s distinctions of 4being5 s. 4doing5 here. Hakarah is, for $ordon, an action, whereas chavayah is a state of being. Another useful metaphor is the @uddhist meditator%s goal . the thought'free state of samadhi. <nce the meditator thinks a thought, there is action, there is no longer samadhi, e en if the meditator is only think' ing 4/%m here.5 The state of samadhi is dependent on non'articulation. /n the same way, chavayah is also dependent on non'articulation, but it is also dependent on action, and here $ordon differs from the @uddhists. The term chavayah, as mentioned abo e, is an artificial construction of $ordon%s own making. /t is a noun, as close as 2ebrew gets to a gerund construction, thus maintaining a taste of the acti e state. The uniAue element in $ordon%s presentation of this concept lays in its pedagogical implications. The self cannot gain true self'knowledge simply through further Auestion' ing, further in estigation! thus the indi idual must ha e both time and space for experi' ence, for chavayah. This means that instruction is limited . it can only pro ide informa' tion to hakarah. *tudents, or indi iduals at the object of instruction, must ha e the op'
1; /bid., p. C&

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege (+ portunity to gain knowledge through chavayah. To put it another way, practice is as im' portant as theory. :or $ordon, this practice was work in nature, in the double sense of the 2ebrew term, ,Avodah- . which means at once work and worship, labor and ser ice. Through work, the indi idual rehearses the chavayah, strengthening it and learning to pay attention to its insights and conceptions. 0829: :Avodah< The 2ebrew term Avodah means both labor and worship. /n the @ible, it is the term used for the sacrificial ser ice of the priests. $ordon uses Avodah to refer to physical work in nature and as a general term for labor, but not to refer to mechanical or industri' al work. /t is the natural state of humanity, the primary acti ity which humans would do, regardless of consciousness or self'awareness. The dual nature of the 2ebrew term is central to his religious thought! labor is worship and ice ersa. :or $ordon this in' troduced holiness into the day'to'dayness of work, but after his death it ga e rise to his legacy of the so'called %religion of labor.% 9ike most 8ews of the late "Dth and early )&th 3enturies, $ordon shared the idea that the 8ews in (urope were parasites on 4producti e5 society. This idea, with it roots in the economics and philosophy of the "Cth and "Hth 3enturies, was a base for both (uropean antisemitism and the 8ewish search for a means of escape from it.1B Another idea central to both >ionist and Antisemitic thought was the idealist critiAue of 8udaism%s focus on the material, worldly mitzvot, especially those of kashrut and circumcision, seemingly at the cost of hea enly ideals. This critiAue has ancient roots in the (pistles of 7aul, and thus dates back right to the initial schism between Rabbinic 8udaism and 7auline 3hris'
1B *ee *ternhell, ch. "

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege (, tianity. /n the "Cth 3entury, *pino6a raised similar criticisms, in which the 4material5 has a distinctly negati e alence when compared with the 4ideal.5 /n the early (manci' pation period, the criticism that 8udaism is primarily materially focused while 3hristian' ity primarily ideally focused was re i ed in $erman 7rotestant polemics against 8u' daism, and in the 8ewish responses to them. Rarely was there a Auestion regarding the inherent alue judgment of the argument. /t is only in the wake of =arx that 4materialism,5 now de oid of its association with 8udaism, takes on a positi e alence.11 /n the >ionist mo ement of the early )&th 3entu' ry, one of the expressions of the first idea could be found in the di ision between the so' cialist Chalutzim and the more traditional religious 8ews who depended upon the monies of the Chalukah. The Chalutzim, as socialists, accepted the criticism of tradi' tional 8udaism as 4parasitic5 and 4unproducti e,5 and claimed for themsel es the right to represent a 4materialist5 solution ,now in the =arxian sense- to the 8ewish problem. Thus they rejected many of the idealist ,e.g. non'materialist, e.g. spiritual- elements of 8udaism as well, as 4unproducti e.5 3entral to this discourse is a utilitarian approach that was anathema to $ordon. /n this respect, $ordon%s notion of avodah differed from that of others in the period of the %*econd Aliyah.% The ideal of kibush ha1avodah . literally 4the conAuest of labor,5 in which the worker conAuered his or her self, that was unaccustomed to working, and the 8ewish workers conAuered 7alestine by their work . was certainly part of $ordon%s

11 (n ironmental thought often takes a dim iew of both materialism and empiricism. 4(n ironmentalist groups which ad ocate holistic thought and non'in asi e approaches to the human body as well as the natural en ironment typically define themsel es against what they iew as the o erly speciali6ed, materialist, and aggressi e methodology of modern science,5 writes 2eise.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege (thought, as well as that of Mitkin, ?at6nelson, @en $urion, and other leaders of the *ec' ond Aliyah. @ut $ordon saw work as truly holy, beyond the practical, utilitarian goals of >ionism. This is exemplified in the apocryphal story in which $ordon, part of a crew digging holes for a citrus gro e at Reho ot, fell behind the others. The pay was piece' work . e.g. the more holes, the more the pay, and the other workers were angry with $ordon for working too slowly. 0hen confronted by them, $ordon was unconcerned. 2e told his fellows that the pay was irrele ant, the holes must be perfect for their own sake. ;75 :Sekhel< and <;:=>;75 :Sekhel Ne'elam< The importance of chavayah notwithstanding, the importance of hakarah must not be denied. Hakarah brings us ast and important understanding, and ital concepts. *cien' tific knowledge, technics and empirical understanding all fall under its rubric. $ordon again defines new terms to differentiate between the different kinds of thought that the indi idual uses to process these two different kinds of knowledge that are obtained by these tools. The knowledge that can be gained through hakarah, objecti e, empirical knowledge, is processed in the sekhel, while the knowledge that is gained through chavayah is captured in the sekhel ne1elam. The first is logical intellectual thought, the second, something Auite different. $ordon%s idea of sekhel ne1elam is complex and difficult to explain. /n Human and Nature, he dedicates the eighth chapter to an examination of chavayah and its method of concei ing its special kind of knowledge. 2ere, $ordon begins with the animal soul, e.g. the soul before it reaches consciousness. /n examining this, we learn that the

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege (. hakarah is, in fact, disconnected from life, because it can only concei e of the external form, and not the content. *ince we can feel life itself, and since the only thing we can be sure of, upon our intellectual examination of of the pre'conscious soul, is life itself, there must be something else at work, and this something else is chavayah.45 /n the same section, $ordon expands the explanation of the term that he ga e in the note to the essay 4<n the #ifference @etween 8udaism and 3hristianity.5 Chavayah, he says, is to be found in between Havayah and hakarah6 it is the mediator between the two. /n other words, real knowledge of Havayah, of the whole world and the fullness thereof, of the totality of existence, reAuires at once both a simplification, a focus of awareness, pro ided by hakarah, and an expansion of awareness, pro ided by chavayah.
3onception of expansion Nhit*ashtutO, from within which the concei er comes to concei e, is within the infinite whole, and therefore is not consciously known or felt, rather, through the hidden channels of chavayah, it strengthens the total unity between what hakarah focuses in one point, and what Havayah expands throughout the whole world to infinity. @y this, what is concei ed of by hakarah is again found to be united with the infinite whole and ali e within the infinite whole.1C

The sekhel ne1elam, literally 4hidden intellect,5 then, is the channel through which chavayah passes its knowledge back to the self. Though we might call this intuition, by his use of a traditional 8ewish term, $ordon seems to gi e it a different alence. Not only does the sekhel ne1elam mediate knowledge of chavayah to the self, it also mediates between the indi idual and the whole world. /n another essay, 4A 9etter Not *ent at the Time,5 $ordon describes two states of the sekhel ne1elam . that of the indi'

1F 0e should note here that $ordon often shows materialistic or utilitarian thought as ha ing grown from 4animal5 or 4sa age5 roots. 1C $elected +ritin s, p. D1, my translation.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege )/ idual and that of the whole world.1H 7arenthetically, $ordon calls it 4the sphere of the unconscious.5 2ere, he clearly means something similar to the relationship between the indi idual unconscious and collecti e unconscious in the work of 3arl 8ung. Hasa ah, the self%s conception of the world, is eAually dependent upon chavayah as it is upon hakarah. An indi idual whose entire conception of the world is founded only on what can be obser ed will necessarily be materialistic and corrupt. Hakarah is in' deed the basis of science, technology, and much of the structure of society, but it cannot explain e erything. Chavayah, is the source of the glue that holds society together. 9o e and genuine relationships pro ide nothing to the indi idual%s hakarah, only to its chavayah. ( en though the ast majority of people li e much of their li es as if their conception of the world is based only upon their hakarah, with no input from their chavayah, $ordon says, no one could li e without both. @ut one who is aware of the importance of chavayah, who pays attention to experience, who lives more, as $ordon puts it, gains a stronger sense of the world and thus a stronger sense of self. The indi id' ual who finds a true balance between these two ways of knowing, of concei ing of the world, gains a part of the Havayah, of the 0orld'@eing, or, as $ordon repeatedly calls it, ( ternal 9ife. <2?@? :T7imt7um< and A2B5CA0 :Hit+ashtut< 0e saw abo e that $ordon%s ethical thought is based in the choice of the indi idual between a life of expansion and a life of contraction. These concepts are central to $or' don%s psychological insights. The 2ebrew term for contraction, tzimtzum, originates in the 9urianic ?abbalah, where it is used to describe the action that $od takes prior to the
1H *elected 0ritings, p. )&;, see *hapira, p. ")"';

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege )& creation of the world. *ince e erything is $od, 9uria says, there is no room to create anything. *o $od must first contract, in order to allow space to exist. <nly after there is space, can the world be created. /n $ordon%s formulation of the indi idual, tzimtzum is the action of the self that is un' willing or unable to li e a life of hit*ashtut, of expansion. This happens, he says, far too often. A life of expansion demands from the indi idual constant awareness, so she a oids it, reducing the span of her ision, of her conception, to the narrowest, most utili' tarian range. The ability to mo e between the two states of tzimtzum and hit*ashtut, sep' arates humans from other animals+
The uniAue Auality of the human, that differentiates us from all other animals, is the psychological ' willful and conscious ' free mo ement, as if all of the /nfinite @eing shrank down into the li ing and aware human soul. This is the point at which human relationship begins, relationship between the /nfinite that is in tzimtzum, the /nfinite that is in #epth, and the /nfinite that is in expansion, /nfinite surrounding, between the human ego and the human non'ego.1D

2ere we see $ordon%s conception of the ego as the 4/nfinite that is in tzimtzum,5 compa' rable to another principle, the 9urianic 4spark of holiness5 within each indi idual. A certain contradiction arises when seeking the kind of life $ordon promotes+ in or' der to escape the ego centered life of tzimtzum, to unite the hakarah and the chavayah, the indi idual needs a dose of willpower well beyond the a erage. @ut willpower is fed from the energy found in a life of hit*ashtut. $ordon%s solution is to be found in Nature+ 4To renew the foundation of life ... to broaden and deepen the life of the indi idual into the life of Nature until together they are united with (ternal 9ife.5F& The focus that most human traditions ha e historically gi en to hakarah, to objecti e knowledge, he says, is
1D *elected 0ritings, p. CC, my translation F& /bid., p. "&F

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege )' the weak link in the de elopment of human spirituality. This is especially true of the science and technology oriented society of urban industrialism. The application of tzimtzum refers to two things+ focus and reduction.F" <n the one hand, the indi idual chavayah is a tzimtzum of the uni ersal Havayah. This $ordon compares, following the traditional religious metaphors, to the similarities between a drop of water and the ocean . both are water, one tiny, the other ast. <n the other hand, tzimtzum is the acti ity of the conscious mind as it attempts to gain knowledge of the world through hakarah. /n order to obtain more and more speciali6ed knowledge, hakarah excludes more and more of the world, narrowing its range of ision and aware' ness. The opposite of this narrowing, this tzimtzum, is hit*ashtut, expansion of the aware' ness to the widest possible range. This is less an action than a state, one that is obtained through constant practice, through the exercise of chavayah. As the indi idual spends more time working in Nature, the mind%s awareness expands until it includes as much of the world as it can. @uddhism calls this state %big mind.% 3hassidism uses an almost identical term, in Aramaic, ,mochin adlut-. The @uddhist path to this state is that of awareness meditation, that of the 3hassidic masters is a combination of medi' tation and prayer. $ordon called for the indi idual to work in nature. @ut he is circum' spect about defining expansion too clearly+
0hat then is life in the state of expansionI #oes such life ha e a feelingI /sn%t feeling a tzimtzum, . and how can tzimtzum be drawn of life in expansionI #oes such a life ha e desireI :or desire, too, is tzimtzum, the desire to obtain what is lacking . and how can desire be drawn here, in a place in which there is nothing to desire, in a place where there is e erything, in which there is nothing beyond what
F" *ee *hapira, p. "FHff

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege )(
is already thereI /s there hakarah thereI Hakarah in the same form, as it is known to humans ... this is perhaps the greatest tzimtzum. F)

/n fact, when put this way, we can guess what $ordon will go on to declare in the ery next paragraph+ that there is no way to describe his concept of hit*ashtut . the use of words would be impossible to describe something so far beyond words . for words themsel es are tools of hakarah and acts of tzimtzum. *till, hit*ashtut remains one of the most important concepts in Human and Nature. /t is the action of the soul as the indi idual opens her awareness to the wider world, to Na' ture. /n this act, $ordon says, the soul can encompass the whole world, not in the sense of surrounding it, but in the sense of including it. The act of expansion is one that brings the internal /nfinite as close as possible to the external /nfinite. 2uman nature, accord' ing to $ordon, is Nature itself. The two are one and the same, and any experience or knowledge that differentiates between them is mistaken or misleading. This seems to be almost a midrash to the text of (xodus )1+H, 4@uild =e a dwelling and / will dwell within them,5 where the human self is the dwelling of $od. @y this understanding, then, the purpose of human life seems to be to keep the two in the closest contact possible. This is the meaning of $ordon%s paean at the end of the second section of Human and Nature mentioned in the introduction . the moment of redemption occurs when the indi' idual is able to unite inner nature and outer Nature. This is achie ed by making the conscious self as minimal as possible. /t is as if the self is a membrane separating these two natures. @y strengthening the chavayah, the self becomes balanced and strength' ened, so that the %membrane% can become thinner and thinner, until it is permeable. Any' thing that enlarges the self, %thickens the membrane,% in essence it delays the redemption,
F) *elected 0ritings, p. DH

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege )) while anything that helps one to efface it, hastens the redemption. *ince both inner na' ture and outer Nature are one, anything that ser es to deny their unity is a danger. Gordon's Meta+hors for 1ature, 0e can now mo e outward from the indi idual, from human nature, to Nature. 2ere, $ordon uses a number of nature metaphors similar to those of (copsycholgists . Nature is a boiling cauldron in which the human spirit is the highest bubble, Nature is the ocean in which the human is the fish, unable to li e without the water%s constant pressure+
And NatureI :or is this also not clear to all+ That Nature, wide open Nature, exposed, %spread before all% is to the 2uman just as water is to a fish and what the air is to all animal life on the face of the earthIF;

:or $ordon, , Nature, means something ery broad . Nature is the substrate of all animal lifeFB, indeed all life. *chweid shows that $ordon%s 4Nature5 means the totali' ty of being, other than that which is man'made. 2e differentiates between two types of instances in $ordon%s use of the term, the one referring more to the aesthetic term, might perhaps be better compared to the 4outdoors5 or 4wilderness5 of colloAuial American (nglish. The other, more philosophical or scientific term, refers to the 4nature5 of things, i.e. the biology of plants or animals, or the chemistry of compounds. @ut $ordon refutes the differentiation between these two kinds of nature, says *chweid. @oth the aesthetic, creati e conception of 4nature5 and the scientific, philosophical conception of
F; 2uman and Nature, p. B) ,my translationFB 2ebrew, both modern and pre'modern, neatly di ides the kingdoms+ the term is used only for animal life. 7lants are , while minerals are . $ordon explains his use of the term in a note at the beginning of 4<n the #ifference @etween 3hristianity and 8udaism5 as mentioned abo e. $ordon used many idioms of traditional 2ebrew, but his work reads as =odern 2ebrew. This was intentional, as part of the nascent mo ement that made 2ebrew the national language of the >ionist mo ement. *ee also 4 P in $elected +ritin s, p.))& or $econd #dition, ol. //, p.BH". *ee also Aberbach, ch. D.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege )* 4nature5 necessarily di ide the human from nature, objectifying both, and interfering with the human ability to 4li e5 nature.F1 1ature as God2 *hapira raises an important point regarding $ordon%s approach+ already in the .eter $hem Tov, an early 3hassidic text, it was noted that the ematria of is eAual to that of -. This point was used at the time to show that there should be no fear of paganism in practice that includes some sort of 4return to Nature5 in early 3has' sidism.FF @y the time of the 4back to the land5 agrarianism of $ordon and the Chalutzim, this kind of apologetics may or may not ha e been necessary. /t probably still res' onated for many 8ews, howe er, and $ordon, who had considered himself orthodox at the time of his aliyah, would certainly ha e been sensiti e to the criticism. The ematrial eAuation is made possible by the definite article, which supports the notion of a neo' 7latonic 4ideal5 of Nature. *chweid differentiates this, howe er, from *pino6an panthe' ism. $od cannot an object of knowledge to $ordon, he says, only of faith.FC Human nature and 1ature as two +arts of one whole /n his call to 4li e Nature,5 $ordon is, in effect, saying that the interior 4human na' ture5 and the exterior 4outdoors5 nature are one and the same. <ne is reminded of 8ung%s image of the 4pleroma5 that is both e erything and nothing and within and with' out.FH The difference between 8ungs 4pleroma5 and $ordon%s 4Nature,5 howe er, is im'
F1 *chweid, p. DHff. FF *hapira, p.)CBff .eter $hem Tov was published in "CDB, ;& years after the @a%al *hem To %s death. Though it was supposedly written by the @a%al *hem To himself, it is thought to be highly hagiographical and apologetic. /n this case, the editors were trying ery hard to pro e that 3hassidic worship in nature was halakhically acceptable, and not necessarily pagan or pantheistic. FC *chweid, )&&) FH *ee 3.$. 8ung, 4*e en *ermons to the #ead5 ,"D"F-

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege )+ portant. :or $ordon, 4Nature5 is, it exists, while for 8ung, the 4pleroma5 simultaneously is and is not, thus negating the importance of @eing itself. (copsychology has presented two primary metaphors for the relationship between the human and nature, according to #a is+ ,A- nature as home and family ,siblings, =other- and ,@- nature as *elf, in which self'identifications are broadened to include the Pgreater'than' humanP world and $aia. As we saw abo e in the discussion of $ordon%s terminology, he saw the interior hu' man nature of the indi idual and the exterior, uni ersal Nature as identical. The indi id' ual may experience hakarah as an impediment to the internali6ation of this fact, e en while using the critical faculty to obser e and appreciate Nature, or to obtain a sufficient le el of understanding to know its possibility. Through work/ser ice/worship, the indi' idual will energi6e the chavayah, which will lead her to a life of expansion, in which she li es to her fullest, li es a life in Nature, li es Nature. 0hen there is total identification of the self with Nature, $ordon says, there is also a sense of both right and of responsibility+
The human, especially when he frees himself from the cables of others, and the ropes of others, and the anity of othersFD, when he sees himself as an indi idual within the whole of creation and feels the need to unite himself with all of creation, or when he joins with it in creati ity . the human recogni6es the whole of creation or is recogni6ed by it as a thing of unity, recogni6es himself li ing in one spirit with it, with all that li es, as if his self is the self of all that being, existing in all that exists and within all that exists, all the isions of nature and of life ... and in all that his own self, as parts of one whole, that he himself is li ing.C&

This feeling of oneness with Nature, of unity with all creation, is e ident in human emo' tions, in feelings of sympathy and empathy, and especially when these are aroused from
FD The original 2ebrew carries an alliterati e play on words+ P P ,mekhevlei bnei ha1adam, umechevlei bnei ha1adam umehevlei bnei ha1adamC& *elected 0ritings, p. ")"

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ), awareness of pain and suffering in the world.C" $ordon seeks the roots of these feelings, and of feelings of right and responsibility, and declares that they cannot be informed by hakarah, but only by chavayah. The language of the abo e Auotation is filled with images of union and coupling. The human, in 2ebrew, is masculine. The 4whole of creation,5 feminine. /t is easy to read a ery strong erotic tone into the text, and / think this is not by chance. A more direct ex' ample of $ordon%s use of the erotic metaphor for Nature can be seen in a letter written to the members of ?ibbut6 #egania during his trip to the >ionist 3on ention in 7rague in "D)&. 2ere, he writes of Nature as an old lo erC)+
:rom 9od to ?antara / stood most of the way, and from 7ort *aid... to Alexandria / stood the whole way on the joint Nbetween the carsO of the train. There / met face to face with my old lo er, with that healthy young'old woman whom they call =adame Nature. / feel myself always well with her, whether she is sad and bitter, or stormy, or when her mood is good and she is laughing. And this time... on a clear day after a night%s rain, she was in a ery good mood indeed. *he laughed as hard as she knows how, and caused me to laugh, too.C;

2ere, Nature is not an alienated 7latonic ideal, all concept and no body, rather, Nature is an intimate lo er, a woman who knows $ordon face to face, knows his sense of humor and shares a good laugh with him.CB

C" 2ere we can see a strong @uddhist influence. Though he was not aware of >en @uddhism or Mipassana /nsight =editation, $ordon%s interest presages that of later generations. *ee note H), below. The other leader of the *econd Aliyah famous for his interest in @uddhism was #a id @en $urion. After his resignation from the 7rime =inistership in the "D1&s, @en $urion tra elled to @urma where he isited the founder of that modern country, G Nu, spending "& days in meditation. C) /n the 2ebrew of the early Eishu , connoted lo er, while connoted comrade or friend. /n modern 2ebrew, the connotations ha e switched. C; , p.)&D also Auoted in T6ur ,"DDH-, p."B1 CB /n his study of the founder of 3hassidism, the @a%al *hem To , Aberbach ,ch. C- discusses at length the possibility that mystical experience is the fruit of sublimated longing for dead indi iduals, usually parents. /n the case of the @esht, Aberbach points out that his mother died when he was a child, and compares this with the documented experience of )&th 3entury mystic 8hiddu ?rishnamurti. /n the case of $ordon, we can see a number of relationships that were cut off by death+ his younger siblings who died in infancy, his parents, whose deaths shortly preceded his decision to make Aliyah, and his wife, :aige, whose illness and death in "D"" were a powerful blow to $ordon.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege )Meta+hors for the 0and of )srael Ramon has shown that $ordon used exclusi ely feminine images for the 9and of /s' rael.C1 9ike Tolstoy and 9ermonto among the Russians, $ordon describes the mother' ing land%s ability to embrace and heal. The use of feminine imagery for the 9and of /s' rael has existed throughout 8ewish history, largely because of the gender assignment of the 2ebrew language. @iblical metaphors for the land include the well known 4land flowing with milk and honey,5 in which the erb .. implies the breasts of a new mother, from which the flow of milk is unstoppable. =ilk is a fairly uni ersal symbol of health and purity, but one must assume that $ordon chose this particular landscape metaphor for its added religious symbolism+ the Rabbis of the Talmud compare Torah to milk. Another metaphor is the more threatening 4land that eats her inhabitants5 that Ramon compares with @iblical descriptions in which mothers eat their offspring in times of war or famine. 3oupled with this image is that of the 9and%s ability to omit out its inhabitants when they transgress $od%s commandments. The 9and of /srael to which $ordon arri ed was a barren and sparsely settled back' water of the <ttoman (mpire. /t was marginal land, from an agricultural point of iew, the border between =editerranean maAuis and true desert, its few waterways swampy and inhospitable to human settlement. The >ionists read that barrenness as e idence of a history of the ecological de astation+centuries of o ergra6ing had caused the destruction of forests that co ered much of the north and central mountain regions in @iblical times. 0hether this was to build and furnish medie al <ttoman pashas% palaces, or to warm

C1 Ramon, p. 1&ff.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ). them during the 4little ice age5 of the "Bth to the "Cth 3enturies is irrele ant.CF #oubtless $ordon%s eye, enamored of the e ergreen forests and the rich farmland of his nati e Russia, saw 7alestine like =ark Twain did forty years earlier+
The further we went the hotter the sun got and the more rocky and bare, repulsi e and dreary the landscape became. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. ( en the oli e and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bounds the approaches to 8erusalem.CC

/t comes as no surprise, then, that $ordon poignantly describes the the land as aban' doned and wasted, in his fer ent sermon to >ionist youth 4The #ream and /ts /nterpreta' tion+5CH
/n my dream / come to the 9and. And the 9and is abandoned, and wasted, and deli ered into the hands of strangers. The de astation darkens the light of its countenance and embitters its spirit.

9ea ing aside, for a moment, political difficulties with the notion that the 9and of /srael was empty and barren in "D&B, we see here $ordon%s desire to paint a picture of desola' tion. :rom the perspecti e of the new immigrant, the land was indeed largely empty, and whether or not centuries of o ergra6ing were responsible for the depletion of its na' ti e flora, compared to central (urope, it was certainly barren. The experience of the century since, which has been an epoch of rapid agricultural and industrial de elopment, has shown that the 9and of /srael was still below its ecological carrying capacity. CD 3oming from the dense woods and long culti ated fields of 7odolia, $ordon certainly imagined a different possibility when he spoke of Nature.
CF :or discussion of the history of tree planting in 7alestine, see (lon, et. al., 7art M, 4@ranches+ >ionism and the land of /srael.5 :or a study of the historical relations of 8ews and trees, see <ren. CC =ark Twain, The )nnocents Abroad, or A New /il rim1s /ro ress ,"HFD-, as Auoted in 3ohen, *haul 4A Tree for a Tree5 in (lon, et. al., p.)") CH /n @urnce%s translation, this essay is called 4The #ream of the Aliyah,5 and it opens the olume. CD *ee Tal, )&&). Regardless of their position on the roots of the condition in the early "D&&s, most scholars agree that the current population of "& to "; million exceeds the carrying capacity of the land.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege */ /n one of his first published letters, written to his friend @oris @rutskus and later pub' lished in the Russian 8ewish newspaper #vreyskaia &hizn,H& $ordon wrote realistically about his difficulty in adjusting to the harsh landscape of the =iddle (ast. The bright sunshine was apparently hard to take+ 4/%m not used to such a perspecti e, because of the clarity of the air e erything seems to ha e an intense clarity, e en from afar, that stabs the unready eye, so that the beauty seems not natural, but artificial. /%m not used to such monotony...5 /n the landscape of /srael, $ordon feels like a guest, afraid to be too easy or comfortable, Auite the opposite of his feeling about Russia. 4The landscape of Russia not only understands you, but you understand it...5 Russia is simple, whereas the 9and of /srael, while lo ing and caring, is not. Not only is the landscape different and hard to get used to, but also the people+
The local people N7alestinian "ellahin, apparantlyO ha e not risen to the NspiritualO le el of Nature in the 9and of /srael. The farmers here don%t share the healthy, jolly faces Nas their Russian counterpartsO. The farmers% children, especially, are generally weak and too Auiet for the demands of their age ,only occasionally do you meet a child with a fresh face, and e en less one who is genuinely mischie ous- . all this raises melancholy thoughts... <n the other hand, at the edges of the 2ebrew *ettlements new plantings are added e ery year, and the soil gets more and more culti ated, thus the climate impro es, life becomes easier, and human life gets healthier and fresher.H"

0e can see here that $ordon%s initial reaction to the 9and of /srael was one of dis' comfort. 2is letter clearly betrays a (uro'centric iew of nature and agriculture, and of
H& $econd #dition, //+p. CC'HF ,*ee Ramon, 47olitical Repercussions5- $ordon%s critiAue of the mo ement%s leadership and its disconnection from the land is e ident in his comparison of >ionism to both the @alkan and /rish national mo ements, neither of which was detached from its nati e land. Gnlike them, for the >ionist mo ement, 4e erything must be imported+ the ideals, the mo ement, the people, the acti ists, the means and the priorities, in other words . all the facts of life. The 9and . the soil . appears for this mo ement to be only an appendage. This is abnormal and bound to lead to sad results. ... All the time that we will not disco er the natural source of our national life from within the national soil, our mo ement will be artificial, like a potted plant growing in the shade... <ur only thought is to li e a national life of work in peace. ,/ emphasi6e the words %work in peace% so that / will not be misconstrued. /ndeed, e erything / will e er say about liberty, rebirth, etc., my meanin is only to serene internal work, national work-.5 Nemphasis in originalO H" /bid.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege *& the 4natural health5 of the Russian peasants, but it seeks solutions on the le el of the in' di idual . not only on the le el of the whole people. /n his study of the place of (ret6 Eisrael in the >ionist (xperience, *chweid points out that though >ionist literature had great 4power to awaken the desire to make Aliyah ... in the first meeting with the 7romised 9and it was exposed in all its weakness+ it created an illusion instead of preparing the 7leh for the difficulty awaiting, that of coping with the landscape NandO the climate...5 H) This text, the first of a series of three public 4letters to the exile,5 while intending to ser e the ideological cause, shows a great deal more honesty than what might be expect' ed from propaganda. Gpon his own arri al in Eaffo, $ordon was aware that many young 8ews, simultaneously dri en by the fear of pogroms and pulled by the mythic call of the >ionist mo ement, were unable to adjust. 0hile $ordon continued to use the term 4Nature5 throughout his work, he ceased to describe the details of the landscape around him. Nature had to become an ideal for him, in order to ser e his ideological purpose. This may lea e us to wonder at his great lo e for something left undescribed. T6ur sees $ordon%s refusal to write lyrical descriptions of the natural beauty of #retz %israel as a rejection of Romanticism+
2e claims that Nature as exposed in the perspecti e of the Artist or the ecstasy of the mystic as nothing but expressions of distance. Nature exposed hides in its details, details of cruelty, of constant and total war that occurs in it, the hidden Nature for which $ordon so thirsted+ Nature that will unite the feeling of existence, the cycle of life, the ability to withstand catastrophe and pain, and the desire for renewal.H;

H) *chweid )&&B H; T6ur, "DDH, p. ")H, emphasis in original.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege *' This is the explanation for $ordon%s focus on human nature, says T6ur, and his lack of descripti e detail. 0here he does focus on the details of the landscape, it is only to emphasi6e his unwillingness to deify Nature. The hallmark of $ordon%s project becomes, by this reading, a sensiti ity to the uni' ersal nature of the difficulties of adjustment to the en ironment suffered by the new immigrant 8ewish workers were ha ing in #retz %israel. <n the one hand, they were re' turning to their 4mother,5 to the moledet, literally the 4birthland.5 <n the other hand, they were coming to an alien place, not to the landscape of their own childhood, that might be romantically aroused by poetic description. As much as $ordon can be called a leader, it was by irtue of his example and his honesty in the face of this struggle.HB 2e was neither a psychologist, nor a doctor, but, primarily, an educator and a publicist. @y focusing on the human side of the eAuation, he succeeded in describing the process of redemption as healing nonetheless. *chweid points out that $ordon%s ability to weather the difficulty of reconciling the harsh reality of life in (ret6 Eisrael, on the edge of the desert, with the ideali6ed myth of the homeland, was in his ability to interpret it through his uni ersal understanding of Nature. @y propounding a philosophy of Nature, one that could help emigrants o ercome their pain, and by his personal example of its implemen' tation, $ordon earned his stature as a modern day prophet. ualit# as the root of suffering both for 1ature and for the Human #a is writes that 4The illusion of a separation of humans and nature leads to suffer' ing both for the en ironment ,as ecological de astation- and for humans ,as grief, de'
HB Ramon calls his leadership 4liminal5 because of his reluctance to take positions of honor or to make speeches at the many political con entions of the time.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege *( spair, and alienation-.5 As noted abo e, $ordon%s thought shared with other 4back'to' the'land5 nationalisms the image of the homeland as mother and as such, as responsible for the initial education of the people. $ordon%s uniAue contribution, Ramon says, is his triangular definition of the organic relationship between the landscape, the language, and the people of /srael.H1 The axiom that guided $ordon seems to be that all peoples bear the imprint of the landscape in which they de eloped. :or the people of /srael, that is the 9and of /srael. <nly in that uniAue landscape could 8ewish monotheism ha e de eloped, says $ordon, echoing many thinkers before him, 8ewish and 3hristian alike.HF The experience of exile from the 9and is also one of exile from the comfort of the mother, and a return to the 9and must, ideally, be experienced as a return to the bosom of the mother. The returning people are able to heal not only themsel es, but also to heal the 9and, their mother. $or' don repeats this image of healing the land by working it and returning it to its fruitful nature in most of his work, especially in his letters to the diaspora. The comparison of this work, as that of 4a mature son returning to his mother to help with the house work5 clarifies for us $ordon%s position . a mature, adult child will see work ,in Nature, on the 9and- as his responsibility to his mother.HC $ordon continues 4This work... will de elop the feeling of labor and creati ity in him to the highest extent, the taste for nature and for life, the awareness of his highest responsibility to all life and creati ity, and abo e

H1 /bid., p. F& HF This is ob iously reminiscent of ?rochmal%s neo'2egelian reading of 8ewish 2istory, also shared by $raet6 and #ubnow. HC *ee Ramon

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege *) all . awareness of the alue of his highest inner self as the highest expression of life and @eing.5HH Traditional !ewish Conce+ts of ualism $ordon%s mysticism and his political acti ity in the >ionist mo ement complement each other from both sides+ the mystic iew of the 9and of /srael, and the mystic iew of the goal of the mit6 ot, of indi idual action. 0hile the 4idea of mystical union with $od or with a higher being is uni ersal in theological systems,5HD it was not the primary goal of 8ewish mysticism by the "Dth 3entury. Throughout the early modern period, if not before, the focus of 8ewish mysticism mo ed from the indi idual%s personal mystical experience to a more theurgic stri ing for the redemption of all of /srael. 2istorical e ents, beginning with the *panish expulsion, dro e wa es of messianism that peaked with the *abbatean mo ement in the mid'"Cth 3entury. This mo ement%s demise, following *habbetai > i%s adoption of /slam in "FC&, plunged the bruised and broken 8ewish people to the edge of despair. The main Rabbinic response to this was a focus on study and repentance. @ut in (astern (urope, where the despair was perhaps greatest, grew an attempt to sal age the self'esteem of the 8ewish people . the 3hassidic mo ement, which called for a change of focus of 8ewish acti ity from study to prayer, and from sorrow and mourning to joy. /n 3hassidism, indi idual spiritual experience had importance, but its goal remained the redemption of all /srael. The 3hassidic and ?abbalistic traditions in 8udaism recogni6e a kind of dualism in the fallen state of the world. ?abbalistic .avvanot, intention'focusing statements made
HH *elected 0ritings, p. )11 HD Aberbach, p. "&"

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ** before performing the arious mitzvot, contain the Aramaic formula 4in order to unite the 2oly <ne, @lessed @e 2e, with his $hekhinah ... to unite the holy name of %od 8 Heh with Nthat ofO !av 8 Heh in perfect unity, / hereby Nperform the stated mitzvahO.5 /n this formula, we can see the goal of unification as the goal of each and e ery mitzvah. *ince the mitzvot include most daily actions, the message of this practice is that the indi' idual, through aware action, can affect the maintenance of the 2oly Gnity. @y the ad' dition of the kavvanah, the indi idual 8ew is an actor in the 3osmos. Thus the indi idual can take positi e action, and not only worry about possible negati e actions, e.g. sin. The Ashkena6ic tradition, following the dictum that ?abbalah should only be studied by family men o er B& who are well ersed in Torah, usually limited the knowledge of these .avvanot to the learned. A major inno ation of 3hassidism was the adoption of the $iddur of Rabbi /saac 9uria, the "Fth 3entury ?abbalist. This $iddur, known as Nusach $e"arad, that adapted many customs from the *iddurim of North African 8ews, among them these .avvanot.D& The ad ent of print and paper technology aided in the dispersion of information and of literacy.D" This is often recogni6ed in the study of the spread of 8ewish texts, especial'
D& =ost of my knowledge of 3hassidism and mysticism is based on pri ate study with Rabbi >alman *chachter'*halomi, shlit5a, ,whose training began in the 3habad school of 3hassidism in the "DB&s and 1&s- between the years of "DHC'D in 7hiladelphia, and with #r. Eossele @ar T6iyon ,Algerian born founder and former longtime member of ?ibbut6 Re%im, emeritus of @en $urion Gni ersity- in )&&)'B at ?ibbut6 9otan. The concepts / am calling 3hassidic here belong to the teachings of the =aggid of =e6eritch, as passed down through 3habad. *ee also *cholem, and ch. F and C of Aberbach. 0hile others ha e critici6ed *cholem%s focus on the corporate conception of the 8ewish people as tainted by his own >ionism, / am not Auestioning it here, as / belie e it to ha e been shared by $ordon. D" Another historical trend should also be noted in this discussion . an ecological one. The messianic wa e that swept (urope in the "Cth 3entury was not confined to the 8ews . 3hristian =illenarianism also reached a peak around this time. This may ha e been connected with changes in the climate. The so'called 4little ice age5 that had caused much hardship in (urope o er the pre ious ;&& years was drawing to an end, and the population of the continent had finally reco ered to the le el prior to the @lack #eath of the mid'"Bth 3entury. The increase in prosperity brought with it an increase in

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege *+ ly the $hulchan Arukh, the Auintessential code of 8ewish law, but it must also ha e had an effect on the spread of the *iddur, allowing whole communities to adopt the 9urianic Nusach $e"arad together. @y the end of the "Dth 3entury, 3hassidic and ?abbalistic practice had spread the notion that $od could be considered as ha ing an external as' pect, the 3reator, the 2oly <ne, and an internal aspect, the indwelling $hekhinah.D) /n the first lecture in his (a9or Trends in 3ewish (ysticism, $ershom *cholem briefly discusses dualism in 8ewish mysticism. 4( ery cognition of $od is based on a form of relation between 2im and 2is creature,5 he writes, noting further that 4the in' herent contradiction between the two aspects of $od is not always brought out ... clear' ly5 in order not to offend the philosophers. :inally, he points out that any doctrine of 4genuine5 dualism would be considered 4downright heretical.5D; Ne ertheless, the tradi' tions of 8ewish mysticism de eloped elaborate systems to explain $od%s presence in the world. <ne of these is the >oharic ?abbalah, with its emphasis on a gendered split that can be healed through the performance of the mitzvot. /n its 3hassidic interpretation, this sees the purpose of 8ewish life to repair the world. The $hekhinah has been in exile from the 2oly <ne since the exile of the 8ews from the 9and of /srael, and is likened to a wife forced to li e apart from her husband. <nly performance of mitzvot with the proper intention can free her. /n the words of Rabbi Nachman of @rat6la , 4all my tra ' els are tra els to the 9and of /srael,5 that is to say, e en the most mundane act leads to

fertility, while changes in hygiene and diet also impro ed life expectancy. D) The gender alences traditionally gi en to these aspects is beyond the scope of this study. :or discussion of gender and theology as it affected $ordon, see Ramon. D; *cholem, p. ""'"B

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege *, the ultimate goal, not the physical arri al of the 8ew in the 9and of /srael, but the unifi' cation of the sundered lo ers, the 2oly <ne and 2is exiled $hekhinah. 8ewish mystical traditions also maintain that the indi idual, the self, is the nexus of se eral parts. Already in the @iblical text, we see ( the dri e in the heart of the human is e il from youth5 ' $enesis H+)"-. /n the Talmud, there is extensi e discussion of this e il dri e, yetzer hara. /t is usually connected to the sexual dri e, and it is clear that the world cannot exist without it. *ometimes, it appears together with a dri e for good, yetzer hatov. These two dri es are sometimes portrayed as two angels that guide the indi idual. 0hile the yetzer hara is often connected to the physical dri es of the body, the indi idual%s will is always a further discrete entity, able to o ercome the yetzer. The self is also understood to include the soul, for which 2ebrew has three words+ ,ruach-, ,ne"esh-, and ,neshamah-. 3hassidic thought e en di ides the soul further, adding two more elements+ ,chayah-, and ,yechidah-, the last of which ne er loses its connection with the soul of $od. @ut e en in mystical 8ewish thought, the self exists at the nexus of these arious parts, discrete and maintaining free will. /t can choose to heed mind, body, yetzer, soul, or not. The radical element in the 3hassidic/?abbalistic conception of mitzvah is the importance it places on the actions of the indi idual . the redemption of /srael is not only dependent on the will of $od, nor only on the corporate actions of the 7eople of /srael, now the indi idual 8ew can also take part in the redemption. Though the indi idual may act, the goal is not indi idual redemption, as in @uddhism, it is the corporate redemption of the 7eople of /srael, of the entire nation. As much as he was

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege *entranced by @uddhism, $ordon finally rejected it because of its denial of indi idual will and action. /n the traditional 8ewish conception, not only do the 8ews mourn their exile from >ion, but the 9and itself mourns the 8ews% absence, an image $ordon repeats in 4The #ream5 and elsewhere. 3learly, this is not the same as the ecopsychologist%s iew, in which all Nature mourns the de astation, but it is similar. The primary difference is that of scale . while the ecopsychologists% iew encompasses all of Nature, $ordon%s reaches only the smaller scale of the national homeland. Another distinction is that in the uni' ersal de astation of Nature in the ecopsychologists% cosmology, all are responsible, in $ordon%s >ionism, there is an elision. #id $ordon feel that the traditional lament of 4be' cause of our sins we were exiled from our land and it was laid bare5 put an almost un' bearable burden of guilt on his young contemporariesI #id his experience of a life threatening attack in "D&D change his mind about the responsibility of the local Arabs for the de astated land he foundI 7erhaps these thoughts also led $ordon%s writing to the lessened focus on specific landscape images, turning to generali6ed, uni ersali6ed pictures of Nature. Primiti/ism and the Roots of Religion #eep (cologists iew the collecti e sin of technology ,for some it is agriculture, for the most extreme it is symbolic thinking-DB similarly to the traditional 8ewish lament
DB *ee (isenberg and especially Ros6ak, who, like $ordon, seeks a balance between critiAue and embrace of urban industrial society and a ra**rochement between nature and culture. 7rimiti ism, a branch of Anarchist thought, is a radical rejection of urban industrial society, extreme to the point of supporting terrorism. To better understand the primiti ist critiAue of ci ili6ation, see the ironically prolix writings of 8on >er6an at http+//www.awok.org, http+//www.primiti ism.org, and http+//john6er6an.net. :or someone who propounds the o erthrow of symbolic thought, he sure knows how to make use of it.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege *. 4because of our sins we were exiled from our land.5 :or $ordon, on the personal le el the solution was to lea e his office, take up the hoe, and 49i e Nature5 ' e.g. to li e as close as possible to the land, working outdoors as much as possible, doing work that 4increases life,5 like farming. <n the public le el, he joined the ranks of >ionist publi' cists . a role with which he was ne er entirely comfortable. /n that writing, $ordon takes a strong stand against primiti ism. 2e honestly belie es that it is possible to bridge the gap between human nature and Nature in the world with' out 4breaking the essels,5 to use the kabbalistic term, without losing the ad antages gained by technology, as long as it does not reduce the contact of the indi idual with Nature. 2e shares a strong critiAue of urbanism with the anarchists and the primiti ists, and this may be what makes him seem to be a Romantic. The alienation of the 8ews from the holy 9and is only the most extreme case of the rupture between 2uman and Nature. This rupture, this pain, has at its heart a dualism of 2uman and Nature, an awareness that there was once a time when the human soul was part of Nature, without self'awareness, and the desire to return to that state. This, $or' don says, is the root of the dri e that ga e birth to religion. Religion began as a primi' ti e attempt to regain the state of unity. *ince religion is a stri ing for unity, its highest form must be that of monotheism, of 8udaism.D1 /n Russia, $ordon was an orthodox 8ew, indeed, in his early publications, he himself uses this term. @ut he was aware that 8udaism would ha e to go through some changes to adjust to the reality of >ionism, of life in #retz %israel. Re'rooted in it%s natural soil, its practitioners fluent in its language,
D1 2a ing already noticed his polemic with Tolstoy, we can expect that $ordon will dwell on this sort of 8ewish apologetics at e ery opportunity.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege +/ it would become an organic spiritual practice. /t would become a tool to reconnect the spiritual and the material, when the 8ewish people makes its home in the #retz %israel. $ordon explains his nationalism from this spiritual point of iew. :ollowing the his' torical progression of human society from small groups to tribes to nations, he notices that as disparate groups unite into nations, their national religious life unites around fewer and fewer gods, ending with a pair or one indi idual god. *eeking unity for the indi idual soul, he says, leads the indi idual into community. 4:or the highest unity be' tween a human and herself, between an indi idual and his fellow, between two nations ... and also between the 2uman and Nature with all that li es and exists within it, withal religion only attains the highest responsibility when it attains a uniAue and absolutely unified $od... <nly in this way can religion achie e the le el of ideals such as %9o e your neighbor as yourself% etc.5DF Religion is dri en by the indi idual%s desire to unify hakarah and chavayah. $ordon%s expected apologetics says this may best be done through a religion ,today we might say a spirituality- that focuses on $od%s unity. $ordon struggled with the religious obligations of 8udaism during his life in #retz %israel. Around the time of his arri al, he became a egetarian. 2e chose a life of labor, in the company of the mostly secular chalutzim, rather than finding a place in the reli' giously obser ant towns. 2is roommate in Reho ot challenged his use of te"illin, as they are made of leather, and he stopped using them at some point before his wife and daughter came to /srael. Ne ertheless, he continued the practice of daily prayer into the time he li ed at (in $anim, using only his tallit. @y the end of his life, the only practice he maintained in its traditional form was the fast on Eom ?ippur. This, he said, was
DF *elected 0ritings, p. HB

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege +& more to connect himself to the greater 8ewish people, than to expiate any personal sins+ 4The indi idual can conduct an accounting of his or her soul e ery day, or on whate er day it seems fitting to do so,5 $ordon wrote shortly before his death. 4@ut here, as in all national endea ors... what is important is the energy that the indi idual strengthens by adding to it! the light that is poured upon her from the fount of 9ife of the highest per' sonality! what is important is the noble melody, further ennobled by the indi idual%s oice as it blends in the sea of oices of the highest human'cosmic chorus.5DC Religion and Secularism The seculari6ation of the chalutzim troubled $ordon. 2e argued with calls for a com' plete o erthrow of religion in the life of 8ews in the %ishuv. 2e was more aware than his younger contemporaries of their emotional need to retain their connections with the past. Ramon relates the tale of a 7asso er $eder during 0orld 0ar /, at which $ordon presided. 0hen it came time to recite the 4=aggid,5 $ordon sensed the despair in the room, and mo ed Auickly to the meal, returning to the midrash only gradually, and con' necting the tale of the (xodus to the experiences of the chalut6im, their suffering and longing. 4$ordon%s principle of applying traditional ritual to modern secular reality was thus intuiti e and emotional,5 Ramon writes.DH 9ike @erdyc6ewski, @renner, and other militant secularists, $ordon recogni6ed the need to ree aluate the place of religious ritual in 8ewish life in #retz %israel, but his
DC /bid., p. B&H 7rophetically, perhaps, $ordon repeated in this essay that a religion, or better, a spiritual practice, that is entirely without faith, is a ailable in @uddhism. This is perhaps a premonition of the popularity of @uddhism in the secular 0est today, and especially among 8ews in /srael and elsewhere. Gnlike 3hristianity, which reAuires a declaration of faith, @uddhism offers a practice that is entirely centered on the indi idual, with no $od, nati e or alien. /t also reAuires no renunciation of membership in the 8ewish people. DH Ramon, p. )1D

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege +' recognition of its emotional purpose sets him apart from them. The whole project of Human and Nature can be seen as an attempt to expound a 8ewish spirituality in lan' guage acceptable to the secular leaning chalutzim. 4Religion did not lose Nits primacy in human lifeO because the eyes of humanity were opened to the blindness of the infinite... rather because the eyes of humanity ne er saw that human nature itself was losing the sight of its more important side, from the side on which it is bound to the source of life, to the world of Nature.5DD The whole secular'philosophical project, $ordon says here, exercises the hakarah to the point of blinding the chavayah to the truth of human exis' tence. The 4boredom5 of the cultured human is the result of this blindness. 4:rom this . false relationships, false emotions, all falsity! from this . social etiAuette and socially accepted lies! from this . the duality of the human soul and life.5"&& The search for unity, both in human nature and in Nature, is the central spiritual task. 8nif#ing Two 5orld =iews, Gordon's Human 1ature as !ewish M#sticism 0hate er gender alence we gi e to the sundered elements, internal and external, of $od, we can see some similarity to $ordon%s concepts of Havayah and chavayah. :ollowing the concept of 4as abo e, so below5 we can compare the internal aspect to the indi idual chavayah, while the external aspect can be seen as the uni ersal Havayah.:;: The unification of these was, as we ha e already seen, the ultimate goal of human life, as far as $ordon was concerned.
DD *elected 0ritings, p. ";C "&&/bid., p. ";C "&"$ordon%s Nature sometimes carries a gender alence informed by the masculine gender gi en the term 45 in 2ebrew. 0e ha e seen that *hapira shows the 3hassidic ematria that eAuates 45 with , $od the 3reator, with which $ordon was presumably familiar. *o it may be that $ordon iewed the grand external concept of Nature as masculine, and perhaps also the indwelling nature of the indi idual.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege +( $ordon was sensiti e to the changing place of the indi idual within the community, as the world mo ed on the continuum from religious to secular, he ne ertheless maintained an insistence on the corporate nature of human existence+ the closing words of Human and Nature emphasi6e this abo e all+ 4The way to the 2ighest 9ife lies, therefore, ... in an aspiration to li e ... more, to drown the indi idual self in life, in the life of all that li es and exists, in the 9ife of the 0orld. ... 2uman life begins with the Nation, and the life of the Nation begins with Nature.5"&) 2e recogni6ed that he would be accused of mysticism early on in his work on Human and Nature. 2is response comes early on in the essay, in the section published in his lifetime. The intellectual atmosphere of 7alestine at the time certainly fa ored hard'headed materialism or 4scientific5 rationalism o er any form of mysticism, and this presumably is what led $ordon to preempt any such attack. 4The charge is . mysticism. ... @ut how can we apply the term mysticism to that which is the ery essence of man . the ery self of the indi idual, the personal will, the indi idual character, the 4/5 that lies in the field of the unknown and unsensed, and decidedly not in the realm of hakarahI5"&; This seeming rebuttal is, in fact merely the opening of a counter'attack on secular rationalism. The more ad anced human de elopment, $ordon says, the larger our store of scientific knowledge becomes, the greater is our need to 4li e in Nature.5"&B / read this as a justification+ a definition of the human need for a
"&)$elected +ritin s, p. "C" "&;$elected +ritin s, p. 1", translated in @urnce, p. "CB "&B*ee Auote on p. ". There is a marked defensi eness in the tone of $ordon%s apology for his nature' based mysticism, a defensi eness that runs through much of the scholarship of 8ewish *tudies, especially in /srael. Amir ,)&&B- writes 4$ordon is indubitably a rationalist.5 /f it is indubitable, why is there a need to say soI /f there is doubt, it must be dispelled through argument. /t seems to me that there is a strong sense of suspicion in /srael against anything that can be labeled as 4spiritual5 or 4romantic.5 *pirituality and mysticism, since they are anti'scientific, are

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege +) mystical dimension, one that is unknowable through any scientific or technological extension of the senses. This is the language of what Aldous 2uxley called 4the perennial philosophy,5 the same discourse that will be raised in the late )& th 3entury as transpersonal psychology, and, when related to Nature, as ecopsychology. "&1 Prescri+tions and +ractice, Can the alienated soul be healed2
Reali6ing the connection between humans and nature is healing for both. This reconnection includes the healing potential of contact with nature, work on grief and despair about en ironmental destruction, ecotherapy, psychoemotional bonding with the world as a source of en ironmental action, and sustainable lifestyles.5"&F

0e ha e seen that $ordon%s conception of work, following the identity of the 2e' brew terms, can be seen as a form of worship. This was drawn out by the secular 9abor >ionists into a 4religion of labor.5 These secular nationalists gladly adopted a theory and a practice that would lead young people to a life of agricultural labor that could set' tle and 4redeem5 the land, and thereby build the nation, economically and physically. There is no doubt that this was one of $ordon%s primary goals. @ut by remo ing the ulti' mate goal, which for $ordon was to partake of /nfinite 9ife, the 9abor >ionists lost an
suspect as being therefore childish and somehow immoral. They were often blamed for the suffering of 8ews at the hands of anti'semites ,see below-. This was more the case in the early )& th 3entury than it is today. Romanticism, on the other hand, was thoroughly discredited in the late )&th 3entury because of its connections with Na6ism, and is only beginning to be rehabilitated in scholarship today. /n /srael, such a rehabilitation will necessarily take longer than other places. "&1(copsychology is based on the recognition of a fundamental nonduality between humans and nature and on the insight that the failure to experience and act from this nonduality creates suffering...5 #a is "DDH Ros6ak ,)&&"- Auotes 2uxley%s "DF) utopian no el )sland+ 4Ne er gi e children a chance of imagining that anything exists in isolation. =ake it plain from the ery first that all li ing is in relationship. *how them relationships in the woods, in the fields, in the ponds and streams, in the illage and the country around it. ... always teach the science of relationship in conjunction with the ethics of relationship.5 An opposing iew of ecological mysticism is presented by @ookchin+ 4/dentifying the natural world as %wilderness% or as a transcendental %cosmos% ... does more than cloak dire social imperati es with a mystical pseudo'reality. /t actually intensifies our alienation from the natural world, despite the fact that many deep ecology acolytes regard this ery alienation as the source of our social problems.5 ,@ookchin 40hich 0ay5, p. "F, as Auoted in 2umphrey- $ordon%s project, like (copsychology, seeks to sol e this ery alienation. "&F#a is, <p cit.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege +* important aspect of $ordon%s thought. Gnlike his students and his ideological grandchil' dren in the youth mo ements, $ordon was primarily a religious man. Though he e en' tually ga e up traditional 8ewish practice, he was able to maintain a religiosity through a new understanding of the mitzvot of the land of /srael, a new understanding of avodah. The obligation that had been fulfilled through 4worship5 was now fulfilled through work in Nature."&C

8nification of the Self and 1ature 0hat are the implications of $ordon%s construction of human nature for Nature, for a human place in the worldI 0as $ordon%s a uni ersal call to li e a life of expansionI / belie e it was. / belie e that $ordon%s hope was a messianic one, in which the wa e that began with the indi idual, through the family would extend to the entire >ionist com' munity, then the entire 8ewish people, and thus e er outwards to the whole world. 2is ision of indi idual responsibility dri en by identification with, and not just empathy for, the other, extended past humans, past animals, past the egetable kingdom. 0ithout e er seeing the pictures of the planet from space that ha e so energi6ed the modern en' ironmental mo ement, $ordon saw the human self as able to encompass the entire earth, and saw no reason that the indi idual might not aspire to do so e ery day. <f (copsychology, #a is writes that 4At their deepest, psyche and nature emerge as expressions of the same whole and re eal these Auestions and insights as essentially spiritual... @oth nature and psyche flow as expressions of the same absolute source. This
"&C*chweid, abo e, also makes this conclusion.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ++ is not simple a reciprocity between humans and nature, nor merely a broadening of the self to include the natural world, though it includes both. Rather, it calls for de elop' ment beyond the self ,self'transcendence- to an identification with the spirit or mystery which gi es rise to all manifestations''human, nature, and otherwise.5 $ordon would certainly agree. Anal#sis and Critique, Gordon's 1ature as a Romantic Return to .den /s $ordon%s call for the reintegration of alienated 8ew into nature in the 9and of /srael eAui alent to the call of the (copsychologists for the reintegration of the alienated hu' man into the natural worldI Ramon comments that $ordon%s 4conception of the 9and echoed an ideological mo e from a national re ersal of hierarchy to an o erall critiAue of domination of Nature and of the psychological desire for domination and hierarchy.5 This mo e, howe er, pro ed to be well before its time."&H $ordon%s thought was ital to the >ionist enterprise for another reason+ he pro ided a uni ersal rationale for work on the land. Malori6ation of agriculture was considered a necessary step in the settlement of #retz %israel. Agricultural labor was shown by $or' don and others as a method for %normali6ing% the 8ewish people through the %conAuest of labor.% Eoung people were urged to seek a %life of creati ity% in agriculture, a mo ement in the opposite direction than other forces might dri e them."&D

"&HRamon, p. F&. The muddled state of /sraeli society in )&&C is, perhaps, the bastard child of such contradictory ideologies. The country has spent more than half its history dominating the 7alestinian population ,and all its history dominating its Arab minority-, using brutal means, all the while claiming to be the ictim of Arab aggression. The en ironmental mo ement in /srael has whole heartedly adopted a $ordonesAue anti'domination rhetoric, and is typified by acti ism aimed at en ironmental justice. "&DThe moti ations for this included the <ttoman law that granted land rights to those who work their land, a law that became part of /sraeli property law.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege +, $ordon%s call to a 4life of expansion5 seems filled with romantic rhetoric. 0e ha e noted that he was influential as much by irtue of his personal example, by his dedica' tion to a life of labor, if not more than he was by irtue of his writing. 2e approached the state of the 8ews as an %ailment% and presented what he belie ed to be a %cure%. This cure, on the surface, was rife with dreamy, romantic back'to'the'land naturalism, espe' cially in his publicistic writing. Ne ertheless, the details were less important than the spirit, and this is why $ordon reads as a passionate romantic, in the mold of "Dth centu' ry lo ers of nature like Tolstoy, (merson, and 0alt 0hitman, all of whom he admired. @ut at its core is sound pedagogical wisdom, borne of his keen obser ation of both his own personal process and that of the young people around him. $ordon claims to be calling for a life in Nature that can encompass progress and technological ad ance, a claim contradicted by moments of primiti ist essentialism. <f' ten, while claiming an embrace of progress, he is calling for a return to a primal, pure, natural state. 9ike so many of his contemporaries, the rational basis of $ordon%s thesis grows from a supposedly scientific study of history+ 4The people has been completely cut off from nature and imprisoned within city walls these two thousand years.5 ""& $i e or take a few hundred+ $ordon is more interested in the emotional and spiritual discon' nect from the 4natural5 condition of humanity than in historical accuracy. 2is claim is that by their nature, nations or peoples work their own land, but for hundreds of years, the 8ewish people suffered from a disconnection from their land. As a result, 8ews were unable to de elop a healthy culture. This is an essentiali6ing, neo'2egelian reading of history . not ser ing objecti e, scientific accuracy, but messianic teleology+ (astern (u'
""&PP in *econd (dition, /+";Bff.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege +ropean 8ews of the time are city dwellers, they ha e no national culture, their language is not a %natural% one, etc.! when they return to a natural life on their own land, all their troubles will be sol ed. $ordon freely adds a lea ening of a popular socialism in his publicistic writing+ 40e lack the principle ingredient for national life. 0e lack the habit of labor ... to which one is attached in a natural and organic way.5""" The solution to an unnatural culture is a nat' ural and organic connection to labor. A life of the mind reAuires a life of the body, and the body can only truly work in its own space, its own land. This can only happen for the 8ews in #retz %israel. /n the 2oly 9and, the metaphors of the 2oly Tongue will fi' nally come to life. This is simply a recapitulation of the mystical nationalism of Eehuda 2a9e y that we examined earlier, in the supposedly rational language of 2egel and =arx. /saiah @erlin defines two hallmarks of Romanticism+ firstly, a focus on human will as a measure of worth. Any and e ery action can be seen as a work of art, measured by the extent to which its actor succeeds in expressing his own will in its doing. Thus, $or' don%s public identity, as a man who %practiced what he preached,% is another romantic statement. /n a sense this was $ordon%s critiAue of %cultural >ionism% ' 40hat we are come to create at present is not the culture of the academy, before we ha e anything else...5 because first 4we must do with our own hands all the things that make up the sum total of life.5 There can be no cream if there is no milk, as it were, so e en bookish, middle'aged managers like $ordon must put a shoulder to the wheel. 9eaders must lead
""")bid. *ee p. )H abo e, the text related to footnote BD. /n Human and Nature, $ordon rejected socialism as o erly utilitarian and goal oriented.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege +. by example. #escribing $ordon%s relationship with his younger co'workers, =uki T6ur writes+
/f there was anyone who was able to enwrap the young chalutzim, to protect them and to extend a fatherly hand in a world without parents, it was $ordon+ 2e symboli6ed both continuity without betrayal and compromise without conceding personal re olution."")

The impossibility of such 4continuity without betrayal, compromise without conces' sion5 seems typical of this romantic ideal. $ordon himself wrote in another essay, 4/t must be absolutely clear to us that we ha e two paths to choose from in 7alestine+ one is the practical way of the worldly'wise, the other is the real life of national rebirth.5""; This is an ideology for the redemption of the 8ewish 7eople through 9abor, rather than through some traditional religious process. The reality of this %Real 9ife% is purely sub' jecti e, and its % itality%, defined only tautologically. $ordon%s redemption seems to be a self'authenticating process, rather than one with a clearly defined, measurable scale. The second of @erlin%s hallmarks of Romanticism is the focus on flow, rather than on content. $ordon%s imagery of 9ife and Nature surely fit this pattern well. The romantic indi idual stands alone in the chaos of the uni erse+
... there is no structure of things. There is no pattern ... There is only, if not the flow, the endless self'creati ity of the uni erse. The uni erse must not be concei ed of as a set of facts ... the uni erse is a process of ... perpetual self' creation ... by identifying with it ... by disco ering in yourself those ery creati e forces which you also disco er outside, by identifying on the one hand spirit, on the other hand matter, by seeing the whole thing as a ast self organising and self' creati e process, you will at last be free.5""B

"")T6ur, p H& "";*ome <bser ations5, 2er6berg, p;C1 ""B@erlin, *ir /saiah, The <oots o" <omanticism ,7rinceton+ 7rinceton Gni ersity 7ress, "DDD- p")& / am well aware that / am eliding @erlin%s reference to the %dark side% of romanticism+ 4which can be concei ed ... as hostile to man, as by *chopenhauer or e en to some extent by Niet6sche, so that it will o erthrow all human efforts to check it, to organise it, to feel at home in it, to make oneself some kind of cosy patter in which one can rest...5

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ,/ @erlin staked his claim on the roots of Romanticism in a rebellion against "Hth 3entu' ry empiricism. *hapira, howe er, has shown that $ordon%s eschatology grows fairly or' ganically from traditional 8udaism, lea ing us to wonder why @erlin elides the link be' tween Romanticism and traditional religious thought.""1 That link is part of the chain that includes Ros6ak%s (copsychology. /n his ast book The #colo y o" #den, ( an (isenberg examines in great detail the timeless myths of (den and Arcadia in space, and the $olden Age and 0orld to 3ome in time. 2e shows how the dream of a perfect world, in which the relationship between nature and culture is balanced and perfected, is an image that has been held up as a hope for human destiny, whether attainable or not, since the time of the *umerians and be' fore. 0hen seen through the scope of (isenberg%s study, $ordon%s dream fits neatly into the wa e of neo'romantic back'to'the'land nationalism that swept much of (urope in the late "Dth and early )&th 3entury. $ordon might be relegated, in a sense, to a cul'de' sac of nationalist naturalist philosophy, like Tolstoy for the Russians, and Thoreau for the Americans. "e#ond Romanticism, >ionism as !ewish bio;regionalism 8eremy @enstein notes that the influence of philosophical rationalism on modern 8ewish thought has often blinded us to the fact that 48ews from the @ible onward ha e
""17articularly his own, e.g. 8ewish, tradition. /n the Talmudic discussion of the messianic age ,@abylonian Talmud, *anhedrin D;b-, for example, the sage Ra says 4all the dates Nmentioned by the prophetsO ha e passed, it Nthe coming of the messiahO depends only on repentance and good deeds.5 This is understood to mean that actions are more important than declarations of faith, thus work on the farm is more important than philosophy on the page. $ordon himself calls into Auestion the Romantic tendency to fa or form o er content. /n his chapter on aesthetics, he says that a concept of beauty in tzimtzum fa ors form o er content, whereas beauty in hit*ashtut takes its form from its content. The former takes its power from ideas, whose pro ince is the hakarah, whereas the latter draws its power from the internal spark of life, from the chavayah and its source of energy, the (ternal Havayah. The implication here is that culture is yet another enterprise of the intellect, de oid of real life.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ,& belie ed that nature is ali e and deeply spiritual.5 /n other words, nature spirituality like $ordon%s was the norm throughout the course of the history of 8ewish thought, not the exception. :urthermore, he writes,
0e must acknowledge that i" we re9ect the sentience o" nature, we are not rejecting paganism for the sake of 8ewish belief! rather, we are re9ectin some dee*ly rooted 3ewish values in the name of a hyper'rationalist scientific world iew.""F

*uch a 4hyper'rationalist world iew5 can no less account for the emotional life of the immigrant in his or her new home than it can moti ate alienated indi iduals to make radical changes in their li es, such as emigrating to #retz %israel. $ordon%s awareness of this emotional component of the >ionists% adjustment to their new home sets his work apart from that of many other >ionist ideologues. *imon *chama writes that nature thinkers are 4not just a motley collection of ec' centrics rambling down memory lane,5 but that they 4belie ed that an understanding of landscape%s past traditions was a source of illumination for the present and future.5""C $ordon%s idea that 4a person, as far as s/he is human, must always be in Nature,5 is not only a philosophical axiom, but a prescription based in an ancient tradition that distills generations of experience. That prescription was made, in arious forms, by a large number of thinkers in the late "Dth and early )&th 3enturies. 8ohn =uir%s campaign to cre' ate National parks in the Gnited *tates was moti ated by a similar understanding. $or' don%s prescription was a dri ing force in the agricultural de elopment of (ret6 Eisrael, which was understood as a necessary step in the de elopment of the nation in the mak' ing. <ne of the points of pride of the >ionist project has been the fact that /srael is the only country in the de eloped world that has seen an increase in its egetation co er in
""F @enstein, p. H;, my italics ""C *chama, p. "C

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ,' the )&th 3entury, an increase that is entirely the work of human hands. *chama argues that such positi e human influences on the landscape can be seen as 4a cause not for guilt and sorrow, but for celebration.5 .cological .thics /n ecological ethics, $ordon%s work can also ser e an important role. Gri $ordon points out its similarities to %deep ecology% ,in the generic use of the term-, as defined by Naess.""H 0ith his 4social ecology,5 @ookchin calls the eco'centric forms of deep ecolo' gy into Auestion as misanthropic and anti'humanist. $ordon would certainly ha e sided with him. <ne of @ookchin%s important differentiations is what he calls 4first Nature5 and 4second nature5 ' :irst Nature is biological e olution, while second nature is human social e olution, or human nature. This is similar to $ordon%s dual structure of Havayah and chavayah. An ethical construction like that of deep ecology, in which human action in Nature is a *riori guilty, and must be, at best, limited, is unbearable and radically alienating. @ookchin suggest that this kind of thinking encourages passi ity, if not de' spair, on the part of humans, with regard to non'human Nature. /n such a construction, humanity is the 4enemy5 of 4free5 Nature. @ut, as we ha e seen, $ordon ,and the (copsychologists- shares some of the deep ecologists% world iew, especially the more spiritual dri e to culti ate a sense of interde' pendence and interconnectedness, as part of the goal of life. $ordon%s ethics recogni6e
""HNaess differentiated 4deep5 and 4shallow5 ecologies by their approaches to society. #eep ecologies call for total ree aluation of social systems to address ecological concerns, shallow ones seek solutions within the system. /n the "DD&s, Al $ore was considered the Auintessential 4shallow5 ecological acti ist, the 0orld 0ildlife :und, working as it does with major corporations, the Auintessential 4shallow5 ecological organi6ation. Gri $ordon writes that 4deep ecology ... is no longer a family name for all the approaches that see the ecological crisis as socially and philosophically deep. /t has come to assume a more specific set of alues, which / am not sure $ordon%s philosophy would so easily subscribe to.5

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ,( human alienation as the source of en ironmental de astation, in so far as the human in' di idual must choose to act, and will not choose destructi e action if she is in a state of hit*ashtut. 2er expanded self will act compassionately, because she recogni6es Nature as an extension of her self. /n order to obtain the goal of such action, $ordon focuses on sol ing the alienation between 2uman and Nature. This is similar to the deep ecologists% dri e to a 4sense of interconnectness,5in which the human exists within a 4web of life,5 but like @ookchin%s 4social ecology5 seeks to a oid any acti ism that may be anti'hu' manist, thus increasing alienation. Thera+eutic A++lications of a Gordonesque ?0ife in 1ature@ 0e ha e seen that $ordon%s thought bridges these di ergent approaches to ecological ethics. New =exico psychotherapist and acti ist 3hellis $lendinning says 4making dec' larations about returning to the (arth to address our human pathologies can ne er suc' ceed so long as they remain mere pleas to step outside and smell the grass.5 2er work with reco ering addicts and ictims of iolence and sexual abuse has led her to the con' clusion that 4a traumati6ed state is not merely the domain of the Mietnam eteran or the sur i or of childhood abuse! it is the underlying condition of the domesticated psyche.5 The implications of a human centered ecological ethics show that such an empathetic approach is effecti e, at least in alle iating human alienation.""D 7ractitioners of (copsy' chology, en ironmental psychology, and wilderness therapy are applying scientific methods of psychological study, showing that the basic axioms and prescriptions are
""D0hether such an approach helps reduce en ironmental damage has yet to be seen. (co'entrepreneur and eternal optimist 7aul 2awken reports that more people around the world are in ol ed in en ironmental justice organi6ations than in any other political mo ement e er seen in the history of humanity. ,in his new book Blessed =nrest0 How the >ar est (ovement in the +orld Came into Bein and +hy No 7ne $aw )t Comin , ,Miking, )&&C-

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ,) surprisingly effecti e. =ichael 8. 3ohen proposes that 4both the destruction of the (arth%s en ironment and people%s isolation, stress and dysfunction stem from a funda' mental denial of our connection to nature and its sensory oice.5 2is 4Natural *ystems Thinking 7rocess5 teaches participants to reconnect with 1; natural senses, most of which we suppress as a result of conditioning by the urban industrial society%s focus on sight, reason, and language. 7articipants experience a reduction in personality and eat' ing disorders, an impro ement in learning and other cogniti e abilities, and a reduction in iolence and prejudice.")& 2is work has been substantiated by research with at'risk students in alternati e education, with addiction treatment and iolence pre ention pro' grams. /sraeli psychologist Ronen @erger has shown the application of similar princi' ples in both educational and therapeutic settings with his 4Nature Therapy.5 @erger writes 4/n most cases therapy is addressed as an indoor erbal acti ity in which the rela' tionship between therapist and client stands at its center.5 2e proposes a different ap' proach+ 4conducting NtherapyO creati ely in nature, with the en ironment being used not only as a therapeutic setting but also as a medium and a partner in the process.5 2e ex' plores the 4therapeutic and educational impact ...on the participants and on natureQs role5 in the therapy. 3hildren with special needs, both emotional and educational, were taken out of the classroom, out of the built en ironment, into natural settings on the grounds of their school. /n the course of the research, the children made greater ad' ances in communication and social beha ior than their teachers expected. @erger has used similar techniAues with mature adults and seniors. Though the setting is different, the similarity to $ordon%s concept of 4life in Nature5 should be clear.
")&3ohen, p. "D

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ,* Conclusions /t is ery difficult to compare an ideological, nationalist discourse such as $ordon%s with a post'modern, uni ersalist one such as ecopsychology. They stand at the opposite ends of the )&th 3entury, with all its ad ances in science and technics, its wars and genocides, and its population explosion that followed incredible impro ements in the material condition of the majority of humanity, impro ements of kinds $ordon and his contemporaries could only ha e dreamed. The logical positi ism that promised to re' place religion with science has lost its bearings amidst the growing uncertainty of Auan' tum mechanics. /n addition, the >ionist dream that $ordon and his contemporaries dreamed has been largely achie ed. The 8ewish state is a reality, and no longer a goal. /n its reality, it can no more hope to li e up to the dreams of its founders, builders and dreamers than a child can hope to embody the hopes of its parents. 8ust as psychologists ha e shown us that a child may feel paraly6ed by parental expectations, it seems that /srael, too, as a country, is paraly6ed, torn between the wild di ergence of the expectations of age'old 8ewish dreams and >ionist ideology on the one hand, and the increasingly harsh realities of real life on the other. An honest application of a $ordonian ethics of expansion might, perhaps, lead towards some solutions.")"

")"*ince the publication of *ternhell%s 'oundin (yths o" &ionism, the postmodern critiAue of >ionism has expanded tremendously, as has the reaction to it. 0ithin this ery public argument strong emotions lead scholars and especially publicists to take positions that often betray a lack of nuance or e en a lack of reading. The postmodern understanding that no text can be objecti e is well displayed in Earon (6rahi%s memoir <ubber Bullets. 3hapters ) and ; of this text critiAue the de elopment of contemporary /sraeli concepts of Nature and of pri acy and personal space. A fuller study of $ordon%s legacy should include these issues.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ,+ /n his own life, $ordon was a realist. 2e knew the limits of human nature, he knew his colleagues among the chalutzim were young, impatient, e en impetuous. They need' ed meaning, and especially, comfort. 2e knew that teaching by example would be much more effecti e than sermoni6ing, and that what was important was the attempt, not its outcome.")) 0hen read only for his dreams of a national home for the 8ews, $ordon may sound as bad as *ternhell paints him. @ut as well as being a dreamer, $ordon sought solutions for his own struggle with the harsh realities of life, and that helped him to be a comfort to his compatriots. =uki T6ur writes+ 4The re olution that he embodied in his own life, when at age forty'eight he turned to a life of labor in #retz %israel, made him a focus of admiration. 2e withstood his own personal struggle, li ed the life of a la' borer e en though he knew secret despair... 7erhaps because of this he was able to be seen as a true comforter.5"); 3atherine Roach points out that the difficulty of finding a way of discussing nature that does not 4imply our separation from that to which it refers. 0e are bound by, e en trapped within, the language and history of the 0estern modernism that has set up this separation.5")B /n Human and Nature, $ordon attempted to relate his own uni ersal un' derstanding of human nature in a truly 8ewish language, embodying the >ionist call for a new 2ebrew philosophy that could take the place of the 8ewish tradition that had grown up detached from the soil of #retz %israel. 0hen iewed through the lens of
"))$ordon%s letters, especially those to the poet Rachel @lo stein, are seen by Ramon and T6ur as e idence of his caring relationships. ");T6ur, .utonet, pCD The role $ordon played, as 4Rebbe5 to the chalutzim, may ha e been informed not only by the Rabbinical tradition, but also by the same societal mo ement that sought heroes and prophets in e ery mo ement. This idea was rooted in 2egel%s teleology, Niet6sche%s idea of the superman, in Russian folk literature, and in many religious messianic mo ements of the late "Dth century. *ee @ar Eosef. ")B Roach, p. ";

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ,, Ros6ak%s eight principles, $ordon also shines clearly as a precursor to ecopsychology. The core of the mind, according to Ros6ak, is the ecological unconscious, and its con' tents represent a record of cosmic e olution. According to $ordon, it is the sekhel ne1elam, hidden in the infinite Havayah, that bridges human nature and Nature. @oth seek to awaken a sense of reciprocity between the self and Nature. (copsychology and $or' don%s thought are both branches, perhaps, of the same intellectual tree. Notably, they share a certain optimism, and an understanding that any solution to human society%s crises must include an opportunity for indi idual human success.

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ,"ibliogra+h# A( 5ritings of A( ( Gordon i( .. , ,:i e Molumes, Tel A i + 7ublished by 2a7oel 2aT6air party, "D)B'D-, Referred to as 'irst #dition ii( .. , ,Three Molumes, 8erusalem+ The >ionist 9ibrary, "D1&'B-, Referred to as $econd #dition iii( , ,8erusalem+ "DH) , ! -, Referred to as $elected +ritin s i/( =uch of the work on this paper utili6es the digiti6ed material a ail' able on the internet at http+//www.benyehuda.org/ /( $elected #ssays, translated by :rances @urnce, ,New Eork+ 9eague for 9abor 7alestine, "D;H-, Referred to as 4@urnce5 "( About the life and writings of A( ( Gordon i( Amir, Eehoyada, P " # ," $, in , ed. A ie6er Ra it6ky ,8erusalem+ Ead @en > i, )&&Bii( 4Towards a 9ife of (xpansion+ (ducation as a religious deed in A. #. $ordon%s philosophy5 ,in Abidin Challen es, <esearch /ers*ectives in 3ewish #ducation, ed. Rich, Eisrael and Rosenak, =ichael ,9ondon+ :re' und, Ramat $an+ @ar /lan Gni ersity, "DDDiii( $ed6elman, #a id, 40hat #oes the 2our #emandI (n ironmental' ism as *elf'Reali6ation5 in @ernstein ,see belowi/( $ordon, Gri, 4$ordon the $reen+ The (cological 7hilosophy of A.#. $ordon5, ,Tel A i + unpublished paper, )&&&/( ?olat, Eisrael, P -"P ,4The 9and of /srael in the Thought of the 9abor =o ement5- in Ra it6ky, )&&B /i( <hana, #a id, 4>arathustra in 8erusalem+ Niet6sche%s influence on the %New 2ebrew%5 in (itos ve-&ikaron0 -il uleiha $hel ha-Toda1ah ha-%israelit ,=yth and =emory+ Transfigurations of /sraeli 3onsciousness-

Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege ,. eds. #a id <hana and Robert 0istrich ,8erusalem+ Man 9eer /nst. "DDC-, as accessed online at+ http+//www.geocities.com/alabastersRarchi e/6arathustraRinRjerusalem.ht ml /ii( Ramon, (inat, P(Auality and Ambi alence+ The 7olitical Repercus' sions of A.#. $ordon%s =aternal (thics5, in Nashim0 A 3ournal o" 3ewish +omen1s $tudies and -ender )ssues, no. ; ,8erusalem+ *chechter /n' stitute for 8ewish *tudies, )&&&/iii( -od the (other0 A Criti?ue o" ,omination in the <eli ious &ionist +orks o" A.,.-ordon @:A45- :BCC), 7h.#. #issertation ,*tanford, )&&&i-( Rose, 2erbert, The >i"e and Thou ht o" A.,. -ordon, /ioneer, /hiloso*her and /ro*het o" (odern )srael ,New Eork+ @loch, "DFB-( *chechter, Eosef, .. ,The =ishna of A.#. $ordon-, ,Tel A i + # ir, "D1C-i( *hapira, A raham, ,The ?abbalistic and 3has' sidic *ources of A.#. $ordon%s Thought-, ,Tel A i + Am < ed, "DDF-ii( *trassberg'#ayan, *arah, .. ,/ndi idual, Nation, 2umanity ' The 3oncept of =an in A.#. $ordon and Rabbi ?ook- , ,Tel A i + 2akib' but6 2ameuchad, "DD1-iii( *ternhell, >ee , The 'oundin (yths o" )srael0 nationalism, socialism and the makin o" the 3ewish state, trans., #a id =eisels. ,7rinceton+ "DDD, 7rinceton Gni ersity 7ress- as accessed at+ http+//press.princeton.e' du/chapters/sF"H;.html -i/( *weid, (lie6er, .. : ,Tel A i + Am < ed, "DC&-/( P ! #" $ ,4The 9and of /srael in the >ionist (xperience+ @etween Tradition and =odernity5-, in Ra ' it6ky, )&&B

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Daniel Burstyn MA Thesis: Human/Nature - Insights Into the Thought of A. D. Gordon Graduate Resear h !eminar" Dr Barry Mes h" He#re$ %ollege -& iii( (lon, Ari, 2yman, Naomi and 0askow, Arthur, eds., Trees, the #arth and Torah0 A Tu Bishvat Antholo y ,7hiladelphia+ 87*, )&&&i/( 2er6berg, Arthur, The &ionist )dea, ,New Eork+ Atheneum, "D1D/( <ren, =ichal, 4..." " P ,4:or when you come into the land you will plant e ery tree... that is fruit bearing5-, *chechter /nstitute of 8ewish *tudies :aculty :orum. ,As accessed ia the internet+ http+//www.schechter.ac.il/bima.aspI/#S"H on "" April, )&&C/i( Tal, Alon, /ollution in a /romised >and0 An #nvironmental History o" )srael ,@erkeley+ Gni ersity of 3alifornia 7ress, )&&)/ii( Tirosh'*amuelson, 2a a, ed., 3udaism and #colo y ,3ambridge+ 2ar' ard Gni ersity 7ress, "DDH/iii( 0askow, Arthur, ed. Torah o" the #arth, ol. // ,0oodstock, MT+ 8ewish 9ights, )&&".( .colog# and .coPs#cholog# i( @ookchin, =urray, 40hat is *ocial (cologyI5 in #nvironmental /hiloso*hy0 'rom Animal <i hts to <adical #colo y, edited by =.(. >im' merman, ,(nglewood 3liffs, N8+ 7rentice 2all, "DD;ii( The /hiloso*hy o" $ocial #colo y0 #ssays on ,ialectical Naturalism, )nd ed. re ised ,=ontreal+ @lack Rose @ooks, "DD1iii. +hich +ay "or the #colo y (ovementE ,(dinburgh+ A? 7ress, "DDBiv. 3ohen, =ichael 8., The +eb o" >i"e )m*erative, ,:riday 2arbor, 0A+ /nstitute of $lobal (ducation, )&&;/( #a is, 8ohn, P< er iew of (copsychology5, part of course website at Naropa Gni erisity ,http+//www.naropa.edu/faculty/johnda is/ep/ecop' sy.html accessed #ec. B, )&&F/i( P0hat is (copsychologyI5 ,http+//www.john da is.com/ep/epdef.htm accessed Apr. ", )&&C/ii( Transpersonal #imensions of (copsychology,5 originally published in The Humanistic /sycholo ist, "DDH ,*pring/*ummer/Autumn-, ol )F

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